A Whisper in the Darkness
by sniperpal
Summary: For over 50 years, the people of Mobius have fought among themselves. But now, death approaches again from the stars. Sonic and his friends are ill prepared for the kind of war they are about to face. And their enemy is without fear, without hesitation, without mercy. But Mobius will not face this threat alone... (Constantly editing , betas needed.)
1. Prologue

_Hello, Fanfiction! This is the first story I have ever written for this site, and I'm not sure how it's going to pan out. I'd really enjoy it if you guys left some reviews for me! _

_This story kind of mixes elements of the Archie comics and the Shadow the Hedgehog game, along with some ideas I've been toying with lately._

_All Specters are my characters and, to the best of my knowledge, the Drak and Locrun species have not been used by anyone else. Sonic and Co. belong to Sega._

_Enjoy! _

Prologue: Falling Star

The planet, blue and green and a welcome sight, burst into view as the ship completed its deceleration. It was only visible for a moment, though, before an explosion just outside the window obscured it. The space around the massive ship, which had just fallen silent for a few tense moments, now filled up again with blasts of purple energy.

The cloaked hedgehog in the central chair of the bridge whirled and shouted down to another figure in a black cloak. "Carlisle, how in the hell did they keep pace with us? I thought we jumped before their engines had fully heated!" He shouted, listening to the rumble of the large black-and-red ship that hurtled past the bridge on an attack run. Carlisle the leopard, the technical whiz of the 12th Specters, whose place on the bridge consisted of monitoring the battle cruiser's status, only shook his head in reply. More blasts shook their ship, the _Vanguard, _as the enemy ship's weapons pulsed and discharged more energy at them. An operator at combat control shouted that the shields were holding- barely. A little more damage would change that, and then they would be in trouble.

Blitz the hedgehog, covered with blue fur except for the scars that showed around the cloth covering his eyes and the metal limbs he wore, had been in battles like this before. An enemy ship ahead, and another behind- they could easily have dealt with such a situation on a normal day.

_But this isn't a normal day._

They had been caught unawares. Four enemy ships had sprung out of hiding among the asteroids the _Vanguard_ had been making its way through, and their weapons had already been prepped. If the battle cruiser's shields had not already been raised to deflect the space rocks they were dodging, the 500 Specters making their way towards Mobius would have quickly numbered far fewer.

As it was, two Stryker fighters had already been destroyed, and more pilots were fighting for their lives outside the ship. Blitz thanked the Drak and Locrun deities both that they had already been charging up the jump drive when the Black Arms ships struck. The Strykers had all pulled back to the _Vanguard _under cover from a withering barrage from the small defense guns lining the battle cruiser's flanks, and the 12th Specters battle group had jumped the remaining distance to the orbit of planet Mobius.

Some of the Black Arms, however, had somehow followed them, despite the clear signs showed by scans of the enemy ships that their engines were not ready for a similar jump. Blitz knew this, and yet two Black Arms corvettes were still pounding away at the shields of the ship he had commanded for 8 years. _It doesn't matter how you followed us- we will end you here and now_, Blitz thought, before turning to Mick the lynx, his right-hand man and the youngest of the bridge crew. Mick didn't need to be told; in an instant his pupils swelled, and suddenly the darkness that was now Blitz's world vanished, and he saw everything that Mick did. Through the young lynx's eyes, Blitz could now see for himself the chaos unfolding in the space around their ship.

The _Vanguard, _a battle cruiser-class warship of the Specters of Belaton, was surrounded by two corvettes and hundreds of Sirens, the fighter ships deployed by the Black Arms. S-plasma, the energy that fueled the weapons of both sides, filled the vacuum around the _Vanguard_, forcing the Strykers that were protecting the ship to dodge continuously or risk being destroyed. Currently, the only retaliation the Specters could muster was coming from the railguns that lay on top of the battle cruiser. Blitz watched through Mick's eyes as the powerful weapons fired again and again, their heavy rounds impacting against the protective shield of the Black Arms ship ahead of them.

"How much longer till the railguns drop their shields?" he asked, shouting above the noise of the besieged ship's alarm. Wes the jackal at combat control yelled back, "A few more rounds! The lead ship is almost exposed, and the Strykers have got the rear ship down to maybe 35%!" The screen Wes sat in front of showed what info they had gleaned from the ships they were fighting.

Next to him, Lana, the pretty wombat who shared the duel screen monitor Carlisle sat at, turned and yelled, "They harpooned us!" Blitz wasn't sure he had heard that right. _Harpooned? What does she mean? _"Harpooned us how, Lana? What kind of harpoon?" She could only shake her head. "That's the closest I can describe it! Some kind of shield-piercing weapon that anchored their ships to ours. We dragged them here!"

Blitz had never heard of the Black Arms using such a tactic, but then again, they were quite adaptable. _I wonder what Liam will think of that,_ he wondered, before a shout from Carlisle drew his gaze. "Their shields are down!" the grizzled Specter shouted. "We can hit them now!" Over at combat control, Wes, their best pilot, coordinated the battle group's fire teams to target the exposed enemy ship. Wes had wanted to join his Stryker squadrons outside, but Blitz had wanted him here, defending the _Vanguard _from within.

Now, his insistence paid off. Under a torrent of energy blasts from the battle cruiser's small guns and railguns, along with many missiles from Strykers that whirled around the slower Black Arms fighters, the enemy ship ahead of them was rent apart, a massive explosion tearing through the ship from its engines to its prow.

The bridge resounded with cheering, and Blitz might have joined them, but suddenly a great impact rocked the _Vanguard_. Many more alarms began to sound, and Blitz could literally _feel _the powerful engines of his ship die. The impact was enough to jar Mick's focus, and the darkness returned to Blitz. "What just happened? Did they hit us with a Buster?" Blitz said, jumping from the elevated commander's seat and landing on his prosthetic leg. He ran over to Carlisle and Lana as they turned to him. "We-" Carlisle said, and fell silent. Blitz stopped when he heard real fear in Carlisle's voice, which was rare enough, but for him to be afraid while on the bridge of their mighty ship-

_We've been crippled._

Blitz didn't need to hear the words from his crew. He could feel the ship being pulled by the planet's gravity now. They were being dragged down to the surface of the planet by its gravity well- and with their engines down, they could do nothing but fire their side thrusters and hope for the best.

The strong pull of the planet's gravity finally overwhelmed what little effort the thrusters could give, and the battle cruiser lurched forward as it began its descent into oblivion.

Outside the bridge's view port, a flaming Black Arms ship fall past them as it too was trapped by the planet's gravity. Mick could see out the window on his side that its prow was crushed inward, and its shields wavered as shields only did when coming into contact with those of another ship. _They rammed our engines,_ Mick realized, _knowing full well it would destroy them. They don't care if they die, they just want to take us with them. _

_They don't want Mobius to be warned._

Outside, the _Vanguard _entered the planet's atmosphere, and flames began building on the prow. The ship hurtled to its doom as Strykers and Sirens alike raced to move out of the way.

As the planet grew larger and larger in the viewport of the bridge, the ship began to shake violently, threatening to tear apart from the friction of hitting the upper atmosphere. Blitz realized that they could no longer remain on the battle cruiser and be certain of surviving their arrival on Mobius.

The scarred hedgehog turned to the wombat, Lana. "Sound the general evacuation alert," he told her, "and make sure our... special guests get on the same ship as you. I want you to keep an eye on them." Lana nodded and hit a red switch on her dashboard, setting off a series of lifts and alarms that warned every Specter on the ship that it was time to clear out. The bridge crew began moving from their stations towards the doors that led to the hangar, where the transport ships would get them off the _Vanguard_.

Carlisle, however, did not move. Wes looked at the leopard in confusion as he jumped up to the navigation console and settled in.

Mick's eyes widened when he realized what Carlisle was trying to do. "Carlisle, get down from there!" The lynx shouted at him. "We have to get off this thing! You can't save the ship, it's too heavily damaged!"

Carlisle glanced at him with something like amusement in his eyes. "I've been doing this longer than you, kid. I've got a small chance of pulling this out of the fire . In the event that I fail, though..." He made a shooing motion with his hand, indicating for the others to get to the transports. Mick tried to protest, but Blitz grabbed his arm and pulled the lynx off of the bridge as they followed the other Specters towards the hangar.

Carlisle shouted after them, "Hey, Blitz? In the event that I don't make it, say hey to Sonic the Hedgehog for me, will ya?"

Blitz turned briefly, struggling to reply, but he couldn't bring himself to say anything and he merely kept walking towards the hangar with Mick in tow.

"Blitz, we can't leave him on here by himself! He'll die with the ship!" Mick tried to go back, but Blitz's metal arm held Mick in a tight grip.

"I'd stay, Mick, but I'd need to be able see what I'm doing to be useful. And you are _not _staying on board to help me. We're getting out of here alive."

"And we're continuing the fight against the Black Arms. No matter what."

* * *

As the _Vanguard_ fell down to the surface of Mobius, most of the Specters watched from the windows of their smaller ships as the great battle cruiser descended, flaming and obviously doomed. Blitz, however, leaned against the wall of his personal room in the transport ship, not wanting to hear about his great ship's final moments.

Instead, he prayed. For the life of his brave friend on board the crippled battle cruiser, and the fates of the people on the planet below them, he prayed.

_Good luck, Carlisle. And god speed. _

The Twelfth Specters battle group hung in the orbit of planet Mobius, watching as their great vessel disappeared beneath the clouds.

One single thought ran through all of their minds. The promise of vengeance.

Wearily, Blitz exited his room and walked over to where Wes sat, head hung low. He put his hand on the jackal's shoulder, and Wes looked up at him. "Tell your Strykers to get ready, Wes," Blitz said. "The Black Arms bastards will be on the planet in force now. We should get down there as well."

Wes nodded and put a hand to his comm device, issuing orders as Blitz turned away, deep in thoughts of preparation for their arrival on Mobius.

And the war that would soon follow.

* * *

(_Quite a start to the story, huh? I hope you all enjoyed it and read on, the later chapters are much better than the first few ones (They're essentially just plot development at first. The action heats up later.) Please favorite and follow if you feel like it, or just keep reading. This story is going to get MUCH more epic later on!)_


	2. Chapter 1

_Phew! After that action-packed start, it's time to get to the real story. Don't worry, Sonic and everyone else are gonna start appearing in the story starting from this chapter onwards. There will be a real mix of characters before this is over!_

_This story mixes elements of the Archie comics and the Shadow the hedgehog game, along with my own original ideas._

_All Specters are my characters, and, to the best of my knowledge, the Drak and Locrun species have not been used by anyone else. Sonic and Co. belong to Sega._

_Enjoy!_

Chapter 1: It Came From Outer Space

Eggman had outdone himself this time.

The strike had been fast and ruthless. Metal Sonic and a team of Swatbots, sneaking in under cover of darkness, had gone after the council of the Acorn Kingdom. NICOLE had quickly warned the Freedom Fighters, and Sally had led Amy, Rotor, Bunnie, and Antoine in a counterattack, but even so, many brave soldiers of Acorn had been gravely injured before Metal Sonic retreated, leaving the Swatbots to be destroyed.

The fight had been tough, with the Freedom Fighters desperately trying to protect the citizens of their kingdom and prevent the Swatbots from achieving their goal of wiping out the council members. The end result had been a savage brawl between Bunnie and Metal Sonic that had torn up the main square of the city as Sally and the others had taken the Swatbots down one by one.

Looking around at the wreckage left in the area, Sally's gaze kept getting drawn to the steps of the Council Building, where Antoine sat with Doctor Quack, receiving medical attention. The coyote had tried to help his wife in her fight against Metal Sonic, which had been a big mistake. The blow from Metal Sonic had missed his spine by two inches, and it would have paralyzed Antoine if Amy had not deflected Metal's arm with her hammer. _We were lucky this time, _Sally thought, _but we can't count on luck forever. If Eggman can keep attacking us with impunity like this…_

Shaking her head, Sally walked away from the scene of the fight without a destination in mind. She wanted to speak with Sonic, but he had not yet returned from Downunda. The restlessness of the region had grown in recent months, and Sonic had been sent by the Council to try to limit the hostilities between the dingoes working for Eggman and the people of Sandblast City. Sally knew it was an important mission, but even so, she wished he could have been here to help them. _Sonic never needed luck. He made his own fortune with speed and attitude. _

_We need him to go on the offensive against Eggman. _ The thought gave the squirrel pause for a moment, but then she realized that it was all they had left. The fear and hopelessness that Eggman could cause for the citizens of New Mobotropolis was the greatest threat their kingdom faced right now. Simply protecting themselves from the doctor wasn't enough. They needed to take the initiative and beat the doctor on his own ground.

But that time would not come for a while. Right now, the city needed to heal and the fear needed to fade. Eggman would have to wait until Sonic returned.

She only hoped he would make it back before the madman struck again.

Sally looked over the city, the stronghold of the Acorn Kingdom. After Knothole had fallen to Eggman, this had become their new home. Through think and thin, Sally and Elias had led their people and preserved, standing strong against Eggman and all the other threats that existed on Mobius. Sonic was their best defense against those enemies, hands down; Sally simply wished the council wouldn't use him as a political asset as well. If Sonic had been in the city during the attack, the damage done would have been far less severe.

Deep in thought, Sally didn't notice at first the sudden green flash next to her announcing the arrival of NICOLE's main body, built from the nanites that constructed their great city. "Princess," NICOLE said, "It may be a little soon for news, but I think you need to see this."

"What is it?" Sally asked, a little exasperated. "Has Eggman got some new force of robots on the way to attack us? Some other diabolical plan?"

"No, actually. As far as I can tell, this has nothing to do with him. Watch." With a snap of NICOLE's fingers, a screen appeared in front of Sally, upon which the stars of the Mobian horizon twinkled.

Two were shining very brightly.

"Are those-?" Sally paused, watching, as a huge flaming _thing _fell from orbit. As it grew closer on the screen, she saw it was a ship; that much was obvious, from its shape and the projections from it that had the appearance of engines and weapons. The entire front was crushed, though, and it was not maneuvering at all. Sally watched as it spiraled down into oblivion. She did notice, however, that the ship was colored black and red along its hull. _That's a little different,_ she thought. _And definitely not Eggman's style._

Behind it, an even larger ship made a similar fall, although this one was clearly in better shape. The flames building on its hull could not conceal the lights that shone on the ship, and she could see thrusters firing as the ship struggled to avoid a crash. As it fell further on the screen, she could see a set of heavily damaged engines in back, as well as several ships struggling to keep up that were miniscule in comparison. As she watched, large doors opened beneath the falling ship, and four smaller vessels emerged from its belly, hanging back along with the group of what she assumed were fighters. This group of ships slowed and stopped in mid-atmosphere, seemingly watching the mighty ship they had emerged from fall to its destruction.

"At this point, the orbiting camera I recorded this from lost sight of the bigger ship," NICOLE said. "When I attempted to observe the smaller ships, they had disappeared."

"Recorded?" Sally asked. "That wasn't live just now?"

"No, Princess. This occurred two days ago."

"And you didn't think to tell us until now? This could mean trouble, potentially."

"Based on my projections of their flight paths, both ships were over 90% certain to crash in the Blue Mountains in the south," NICOLE said. "I only just received readings of the seismic activity in that area, though. They do not match the amount that would be expected from two high-velocity impacts by large objects like those ships."

"Meaning?"

"One didn't crash."

Sally grew silent for a moment, pondering this news. Stuff like this didn't happen, not on Mobius. The only aliens they had ever had to deal with were the terrible Xenordians, but it was clear that those guys weren't ever returning. _Newcomers, _Sally thought, _and we don't know whether they are friendly or hostile._

_We have to deal with this. Now._

"NICOLE?"

'Yes, Sally?"

"Contact Sonic. He's going to make a detour on his way back, and he's going to find those ships for us. We should be able to deal with Eggman ourselves for a little while longer."

NICOLE seemed to struggle with a thought for a moment. "Is that... wise, Sally? If these are some sort of emissaries, and Sonic is the first one to meet with them... well, I'm not sure he's the best person to be establishing contact."

Sally smirked. "Perhaps," she admitted, "but he's the only one I trust completely to escape if things go south. Send Sonic and Tails a message, NICOLE."

The A.I. nodded and disappeared in another flash, getting back to her previous task of fixing the city up. Sally let her gaze drift up to the sky, wondering who could have possibly dropped down to Mobius from the stars.

And what they could possibly mean for the Mobians' conflict against the evil Dr. Eggman.

* * *

(_Well, that's finally done! For those of you who haven't read the Archie comics, the Freedom Fighters will be shown in more detail later. Right now, the Specters will be the big show. Next chapter out soon!)_


	3. Chapter 2

_Alright! Here comes Sonic! Who will he encounter in his scouting trip?_

_This story mixes elements of the Archie Comics and the Shadow the Hedgehog game, along with my own original ideas. _

_All Specters are my characters, and, to the best of my knowledge, the DraK and Locrun species have not been used by anyone else. Sonic and Co. belong to Sega._

_Enjoy!_

Chapter 2: Searching for Signs

The deer contemplated which patch of grass to chew on next. The shoots beneath its hooves waved in the strong breeze, but the deer was used to the wind; there was always a powerful gust blowing through the mountains. The deer bent down to nibble at another patch of grass, but suddenly a much greater gust of wind blew by the deer, along with a loud rushing noise. The deer, spooked, bounded away through the trees, away from the unnatural wind.

Sonic the Hedgehog looked back and smirked, before speeding up and zooming over the next peak. He didn't _enjoy_ scaring the deer, but if something couldn't keep up with him, it had better get out of the way. And after all, nothing could keep up with him; he was the Blue Blur, the fastest thing alive. Small wonder the Council of Acorn had sent him immediately after hearing about the trouble in Downunda. They had wanted the situation cleaned up as soon as possible, and they had decided that Sonic was the best choice for getting the job done in a flash. With Eggman growing ever more powerful and eager to conquer, the Freedom Fighters were needed on call at all times. Thus, only Tails, his best friend and sidekick, had gone with him for backup.

At the moment, the _Tornado _was suffering from an extended flight, so Tails was lagging behind to give the plane a break. They didn't want the plane, their only way of resting and still making progress, to get flown into the ground. Before he had fallen behind, though, he had been able to give Sonic the message from NICOLE.

_And what an odd message that was. And also, why the heck did it have to come RIGHT as we were almost home?_

Sonic was eager to get back to the city; he wanted to be beating up on anything Eggman might send at them. But according to NICOLE, Sally had decided these ships from space were a major cause for concern, and she wanted Sonic to head through the Blue Mountains and find out what was up. Sonic didn't see how some spaceships were bigger problems than Eggman, but hey- Sally was the boss.

As he raced over the next peak, Sonic finally caught a glimpse of a clue to what he was there for and slowed to a stop. A black smear ran through the valley below him, and at the end of it, a burning mass lit up the darkening sky. _At least it's evening, _Sonic thought. _All that fire is making my job easy. _ He could tell that this was not the ship NICOLE and Sally had wanted checked out, however; Tails had told him that the ship NICOLE thought had survived had a white hull and would probably be accompanied by other, smaller ships. The destroyed ship in the valley had neither, so Sonic sped up again in search of the other ship.

The mountains around him shone yellow in the light of the setting sun, and the light glinted off the ocean to the east of the hills. Thick forests covered much of the mountains, their leaves starting to change in the beginning of fall. Being able to run free through such a beautiful part of Mobius made Sonic start to appreciate being sent on a detour from their mission. It made such a long trip well worth the work, and Sonic leaned his head back, enjoying the feel of the wind as he rushed through it.

Above him, a buzzing in the air told Sonic that Tails and the _Tornado _had caught up. He looked up and grinned to see his friend waving down at him before turning the plane and pointing towards the next valley. Sonic could only assume that Tails had spotted the ship they were searching for, so he nodded at the fox and sped in the direction Tails was heading.

Sonic could see where the big ship had initially hit over on the mountain across the valley. A trail of smashed and smoking trees ran from the mountain's peak down the other side. As Sonic sped up and rounded the mountain, he expected to see another smoking ruin at the end of a smear. Instead, he saw-

Nothing.

The trail of the crash stopped about halfway down the mountain, but nothing lay at the end of it. NICOLE had said that both ships had been crippled and powerless to stop their descent, but if that was true, neither one would have been able to go anywhere after crashing, assuming they even survived.

Tails apparently had reached the same conclusion, as he was landing the _Tornado _near Sonic right then. Once the plane's engine had stopped running, Tails hopped out of the pilot's seat and ran over to Sonic, who had knelt at the edge of a cliff, overlooking the area below. "What do you think, little bro?" asked Sonic. "This some sort of trick, maybe? Could they leave a false trail on the way down and crash somewhere else?"

"I doubt it," Tails said. He was looking beyond the blackened smear on the mountain, searching for any sign of a second crash site. His twin tails twitched, a habit Sonic was familiar with; Tails was nervous. "They probably crashed near here, and that particular trail of damage could be from some wreckage that broke off before they hit. I just don't get…"

"What is it?" Sonic asked. Tails was smart, and if there was something he didn't understand, that was cause enough to worry. "Look at the ground near that crash site," Tails said. "That black spot there isn't a burn mark; that's a shadow on the ground."

"So?" asked Sonic. "How does that tell us where this crazy-big ship is?" Tails pointed up to the sky. "I noticed it when I was flying, but it only struck me as important now. There are no clouds today. There shouldn't be a shadow there." Sonic looked up and saw that he was right. "So…" Sonic said, "You thing that ship has something to do with those shadows?" Tails nodded. "Yeah, I-" He stopped and stared over Sonic's shoulder, wide-eyed.

Sonic whirled around, crouching and ready to fight. Nothing stood behind him. "Tails, what-" he began, and then something very hard and completely unseen struck him in the face. Sonic crumpled, and as he fell, he heard Tails cry out before a loud thud told him Tails had fallen as well.

Sonic rubbed his head, stunned by the fall. Glancing up with his vision wavering, the hedgehog saw the air in front of him wavering, the light seeming to bend as a see-through apparition approached him. The shape stood over him for a moment, then seemed to raise a long shape in the air and bring it down on Sonic's head. He felt a second, even harder impact on his face.

Blackness took him like a wave.

* * *

_(Oh noes! Sonic never even saw what hit him! What could possibly be going on? Next chapter will be really long and explain a lot! It'll be out soon, I promise!)_


	4. Chapter 3

_Time for the big meeting! The Specters will finally be fully revealed!_

_This story mixes elements of the Archie comics and the Shadow the Hedgehog game, along with my own original ideas._

_All Specters are my characters, and, to the best of my knowledge, the Drak and Locrun species have not been used by anyone else. Sonic and Co. belong to Sega._

_Enjoy!_

Chapter 3: Strangers Wearing Familiar Faces

A pounding headache welcomed Sonic back to consciousness. Sitting up, he saw that he'd been taken to an all-white room. A small line running through the wall shone, illuminating the area around it. Outside the large open door, he could see similar lighting running down a hallway. Sonic got up from the bed he'd been placed on and left the room, looking down both ends of the hallway. He didn't see anyone and started to walk down to a junction he could see.

_I've gotta find Tails, _he thought, before a voice right next to him said, "Well, welcome back to the land of the living, blue." Sonic jumped; there was no one there, but the voice was clear as a bell. "What the-"

The air shimmered, and a black clad figure took form next to him. It was as if the light almost _bent _and dropped the guy right in front of him. Sonic took a step back from the person, who he could already tell was dangerous. Well-muscled arms lay calmly draped over a sheathed blade and holstered gun on the figure's hips. A black cloak lay over the figure's head and back, partially concealing his features. Upon seeing Sonic's apprehension, though, the figure pushed his hood back, revealing himself to be a gray-whiskered male leopard. _This guy has seen some rough fights, _Sonic thought. A scar trailed up one cheek, and he could see another that started at the neck and ran down his shoulder. "Who are you?" Sonic asked, stepping back into a fighting stance. 'Where'd you bring me and my friend? What do you want?"

"Calm down, hedgehog, you're not among enemies," the leopard said. "There's someone who wants to talk to you, but we just wanted to be sure you're not a threat."

"You thought _I _was a threat? I bet it was you guys who attacked us up on the mountain!"

"Subdued you, actually. Your friend was starting to figure out our little secret. We couldn't have that," the guy corrected him. "If you're wondering where he is, he woke up before you. He'll already be speaking with the commander."

"Was it really necessary to knock us out?" Sonic asked. "Pretty much, yeah," the leopard replied. "No one can know we're here yet."

Sonic frowned. That didn't sound like something a person who wanted to be on friendly terms with them would say. He decided he'd follow along for now to find out more, and if anything went wrong, he'd grab Tails and hightail it out of there. _Wherever here is, _he thought. "Fine, just take me to this guy, Mr.-?" Sonic said. "The name's Carlisle," the leopard answered, before turning and walking down the hall, Sonic trailing behind him. As they walked, Sonic took note of the emblem on the back of the leopard's cloak- a picture of a large spear and a sword with runes inscribed on the blade crossed over each other. A large number 12 sat above the emblem.

The hallway they walked through led to a see-through elevator, which shot up through a shaft and into a brightly lit area. Once Sonic's eyes adjusted to the brilliant illumination, they widened, and he sucked in a breath.

A hanger of unbelievable size lay before him. More of the lighting lines running through the walls illuminated a cavernous space that held many ships and lots of advanced-looking machinery. The floor had dozens of small ships scattered all over, with figures both cloaked and uncloaked moving between them. In the middle of the hangar, four large vessels were suspended over what Sonic could see was a huge door at the hangar's base. Each one had more of the fighters hanging on their bellies, and Sonic could see some big weapons on them. Walkways, elevators, and doors ran along the walls, and figures were moving among all of them, obviously hard at work. He could see where the work was really concentrated; through ridges in the hanger floor, he could see a huge engine system running to the back of the ship, and at least a hundred people were trying to repair the damage that ran all along it.

The elevator slowed and stopped, the wall sliding open. Carlisle walked out and started across one of the walkways that ran along the hangar's wall. He grinned when he saw Sonic still gazing at the sight before them. "Impressive, isn't it?" he said. "That there is the main strength of the 12th Specters. We normally don't have so many of the Strykers crammed into the main hanger of the ship…"

"Ship? You mean all of this is inside _one ship_?" Sonic asked in disbelief.

Carlisle laughed. "It looks smaller from the outside, but yeah, every Specter in the battle group and all our stuff can fit inside here if need be."

"Specters?"

"The name of our little outfit. Well, not little, but…" Carlisle led Sonic over to some stairs. Sonic could see a big door in the wall ahead of them. "Commander will tell you more. I'm not really the best person to explain everything. And I think you'll be a little more comfortable talking with Blitz. Although…"

Carlisle stopped suddenly and turned to Sonic. "Before we get there, two quick pieces of advice. One, keep an open mind about everything he tells you. You may have some trouble absorbing all of this. And two… don't ask about his eyes."

* * *

Sonic had expected to find the commander on the bridge of the big ship, or maybe in a war room or something.

When they stopped at the large door, a pad slid out of the wall next to it. Carlisle waved his hand over the pad and the door slid open. A mix of scents blew out the door, and Sonic breathed in the fresh aroma of…

_Chilidogs. Oh my god._

A vast meal hall lay on the other side of the door, with several people sitting among the tables, some of which had hung their black cloaks next to the many doors that led into the room. Near the long enclave where the food was being dispensed from, four figures sat at a table, with Tails among them. He was engaged in conversation with the only one of the other three people at the table who had left their cloak on. The cloaked figure's back was turned towards Sonic and Carlisle, but the other two people, a wombat and a lynx, sat on either side of Tails, eating a mix of food from the trays in front of them. The smell of chilidogs came from the platter that sat in front of the cloaked person, and as Sonic and Carlisle approached the table, the figure grabbed one. Before the chilidog could be eaten, though, Carlisle said in a loud voice, "Hey, Blitz, save some for us, why don't you?"

Tails stopped talking and looked up, breaking into a grin when he saw Sonic. At the same time, the cloaked figure turned, and Sonic saw his face.

He felt like he'd been kicked in the gut.

Of course, he'd met versions of himself from alternate realities. Scourge was one of the biggest pain-in-the-necks he knew, and Sonic had fought alongside Zonic the Zone Cop more than once, but this…

The hedgehog that faced him had fur of the same shade of blue as him- where he _had _fur, at least. Terrible scarring ran up and down the hedgehog's right side, and just inside the fold of his open cloak, Sonic could see the scars disappear under metal limbs. More scars stood out around the white cloth that was tied around his head, hiding his eyes from view. Even without sight, though, this other blue hedgehog almost seemed to be able to see Sonic, based on the way he was staring right at him.

After a brief silence, the hedgehog spoke. "Care to take a seat, Sonic? Try the chilidogs, they're delicious."

Sonic warily sat in one of the empty chairs, glancing at Tails. The young fox had started excitedly when he saw Sonic, but when he had noticed his friend's discomfort he settled into his seat and watched the two hedgehogs with a hint of nervousness. When Sonic looked at him, Tails shook his head and motioned towards the other blue hedgehog. The wombat and lynx sitting next to him had both looked up when Tails stopped talking, and now they both watched Sonic closely with eyes shaded purple and black, respectively.

The other hedgehog- Blitz, Carlisle had called him- wiped sauce off his hands before addressing Sonic. "I'm sorry if you're angry about being nabbed like this. We really prefer to work off the grid, and if you had just run off and blabbed about where we were to your people, it would have made things a lot more difficult for us."

"Made what difficult for you?" Sonic asked in a tense manner. "What are you people here for? What are you guys?" He paused for a moment before lowering his voice. "Who exactly are _you_?"

The other hedgehog regarded him for a second before replying. "My name is Blitz, the commander of the 12th Specters," he said. "Although informally, some just call me Twelve. These are some of my subordinates; Mick, Lana, and you've already met Carlisle." He indicated the lynx, wombat, and leopard as he spoke. "As for what we are…" Blitz folded a metal hand and a gloved hand together and leaned his chin on them, his face pointed at the table. He stayed in that pose for a long moment before sighing and turning his bound face towards Sonic. "We're ghosts," he said in a flat tone, "the phantoms that strike from the shadows. We are unseen and unmatched. We don't challenge enemies; we make them run from us in terror. When we are attacked, our aggressors find themselves fighting the air they breathe, the ground they walk on. We find the great threats of the universe, and we bring the fight to them, either in total secrecy or open battle." He leaned back. "The Specters are one of the most powerful fighting forces in existence, at least among the good guys." Glancing down at his metallic arm, he added, "And for many of us, we pay a heavy price for our power."

Silence fell upon the table. The other three Specters had odd looks on their faces, and Sonic wasn't sure what to make of the words of this strange version of him. "Well, that was elaborate," he commented. The other hedgehog cracked a grin without replying. "So, what," Sonic continued, "you guys go hunting for evil dudes or something? Flying around in your huge ship and blowing up baddies? 'Cuz if you do, you've come to the right place."

The scarred skin around Blitz's blindfold tightened. "We don't go around 'blowing up baddies', hedgehog. We deal with people who prefer turning planets to ash instead of conquering them. If you think we're here to fight that Eggman guy for you, think again."

Sonic grimaced. "Not much help then, are you?" he said. "Eggman's pretty much the big deal around here. You're not gonna find a worse guy than-"

"Your friend here has already told me this stuff, Sonic," Blitz cut him off. "You really think I didn't have to deal with a version of this Eggman guy once? Sure, he's evil; but he's not the kind of threat that warrants the attention of a Specter battle group."

"So what is, then?" Sonic asked, annoyed at the guy's refusal to help them. "Aren't you the commander of this show? Can't you just order some guys to take those big ships back there and go to town on the Doctor?"

"I'm not wasting time or, Ances forbid, my people's lives on a fat sack of idiocy like him," Blitz replied. "We have a more menacing individual to hunt in mind while we're here."

"Who?"

Blitz motioned to the wombat girl on the other side of the table. "Lana?" he asked. "If you may?" She flicked her wrist, and a holographic light shone from a displayer on her gauntlet, a figure starting to take shape in it. "This guy," she said. "Your copy with an ugly attitude."

Sonic, who had been taking a bite of one of the chilidogs, suddenly felt like he was chewing on ashes instead. _No_, he thought, _God no. We beat him; I threw him into the No Zone prison myself. No way he's back_. Yet he couldn't look away from the revolving holographic display of Scourge the Hedgehog, the green nightmare that had terrorized Mobius before.

Blitz waved a hand in Lana's general direction, and she turned her hand back over, removing the image. "He broke out with a group of his friends about two weeks ago," the scarred hedgehog explained. "The Zone Cops have decided this guy is beyond them; it's our turn now." A shadow seemed to fall across his face as he continued. "And there won't be any mercy for him after he's hurt this many people."

Sonic was still reeling from hearing that Scourge was back from his incarceration in a prison in the middle of nowhere. As such, the words took a second to register with him. He glanced up at Blitz with a look of surprised apprehension. "What do you mean, no mercy? You're going to _kill-_?"

"If that's what it takes to shut him down for good, then yes," Blitz replied. "It's another reason we exist; we suffer the blood on our hands so others won't have to."

Sonic could only shake his head. "I hate the guy, but… that's not how we do things here, dude. It's just not right."

"Maybe not," Blitz said, "but it'll save lives. A lot of them." He stretched in his chair, his metal left arm squeaking a little. "Now then, I've gotta get back to patching my battle group back together. Crashing from orbit can really ruin your day." Blitz looked Sonic and Tails over, seemingly contemplating something. "Listen, both of you. We're not your enemies, and make sure you make that clear to whoever it is that rules you. Just do your best to let as few people as possible in on our presence here, and we'll be sure to keep our operations on this world quiet and completely unseen."

Tails scoffed. "Well, you aren't off to a good start, are you? A couple of ships crashing down from outer space? You really think no one would notice that? And who was on that other ship anyway?"

Carlisle looked at the two Mobians strangely. "Friends of ours," he said. "They didn't fare the meteor storm as well was we did. We don't know how many of them will have survived, if any."

The lynx, Mick, broke in with a smile on his face. "There wouldn't have been many survivors for us, either, if it wasn't for our boy Carlisle here. He saved all our hides up in orbit!"

The leopard glanced down, looking a little embarrassed. "Anyone would have done what I did, Mick. I was just lucky enough to be put on the spot."

Lana took a sip out of a small cup and grinned at him. "To be fair, you _did_ keep an essentially crippled battle cruiser from completely crashing into the ground. Not many can do that. And there were still at least 50 of our people on board, as well as our VIP guest. You saved a lot of people, you know."

Tails glanced at her, looking concerned. "VIP guest?" the fox asked. "Is that someone we should know about?"

Blitz shook his head. "It's no one important, kid. Just a guy we were transporting. It would have sucked if he had died in a crash, though. We do kind of need him alive for now. So, yeah, Carlisle's the hero of the battle group for today. I do prefer operating with our ship in one piece, after all."

Sonic grinned in amusement at their banter. "Yeah, it looked pretty bad, the way you guys were coming down to Mobius like that," he told Carlisle. "How'd you get out of that fix?"

The leopard smirked. "Lots of luck, a little skill, and a nice slope to crash onto. These moutnains oftened the impact a bit. Our tough ship took care of the rest."

Blitz took another bite from his chillidog. "The others in the second ship, they don't have the same skill in space that we do. It hurts, but I have to say... I personally doubt any of them made it out of there."

Tails glanced down, taken aback. "I'm sorry about your friends," he murmured. "If we do find any survivors, we'll send them here discretely. Will that be alright?"

Blitz chuckled. "Oh, you don't have to worry about that." He finished off the chilidog he had been eating as he addressed them, talking with his mouth full. "If any of them did make it, I dare say they'll find us themselves. Now, I think it's high time we let you guys go on your merry way."

Blitz rose and walked out of the hall, beckoning for the two to follow him. Sonic and Tails rose, Sonic taking a last bite of his chilidog, and went after him, while the other three Specters continued their conversation as they walked down a separate corridor. Outside, Blitz moved to the edge of the walkway, where they could overlook the floor of the ship's huge hanger. He waited for a moment, seemingly listening to the clamor of the hangar, and then gestured to a corner of the room. "Your plane's over there somewhere, I think. You're both good to go. Have a nice day." With that, he turned his back to them and walked off, going deeper into the ship.

Sonic and Tails turned the opposite way, towards an elevator, towards their plane… towards home. _Enough of this place,_ Sonic thought. _We need to warn our friends. Hell, we need to warn everyone. _

_Scourge is back. Crapbaskets._

* * *

On the bridge, Mick watched a screen as the small contact slowly made it's way off their scanners. _Ancestors, what a backwards planet, _he thought, _still using such basic stuff like that…_

Wes watched the blip on the screen as well, frowning. "It's still too early to be making contact with locals," the jackal commented. "A few rounds of s-plasma,and they would never..."

Carlisle cut the jackal off. "We are _not _murdering local heroes a few days into our mission here, Wes. That's never been our policy, you know that. We'll have more than enough fighting to do soon; don't worry about starting something right now."

They all turned as Blitz walked through the large sliding door, a light clang sounding with every other step. The hedgehog walked up to his chair before sitting down with a quiet groan. Reaching down, he pressed several switches on his metal leg, then gripped and pulled. The prosthetic clicked and slid off, and Blitz placed it in the small enclave next to him before leaning back with his hands folded behind his head.

Mick knew that posture. Blitz was brooding. And Mick understood why. But he wasn't going to let what had just happened go so easily. Swiveling, the young lynx walked over and stood below the commander's chair, glaring up at him. "What do you think they're going to say when they find out?" he said, the brogue he had gotten from his father thickening in his voice.

Blitz didn't move, but the corners of his mouth dropped. "Find out what, Mick?" he replied, casual as can be. "Is there anything else of particular importance I should have told them?"

"You know what," Mick replied. "We _lied _to them. To Sonic the Hedgehog. We lied to his face!"

"Better than them learning what's really coming before they should," Blitz said. "They aren't ready for that kind of news. Not yet."

"Then why the rush to get here?" Mick retorted. "We've lost people, Blitz. 3 dead already, and who knows how many more in the months to come! If we're gonna take losses for this planet, its people should stand up for it!"

The bridge had gone quiet during their exchange; now the other Specters looked between the two warily. Blitz leaned forward, looking down at Mick without a readable expression on his blindfolded face. The two faced each other, a silent battle of wills taking place. Finally, Blitz sighed. "You're right, they should," he said, "but these aren't warriors like us, Mick. They're just people; heroic people, sure, but… they aren't ready. Not for a war against the Black Arms. If we aren't ready when the enemy makes their move…"

Blitz rubbed the scars on his ribs, the sounds of clashing weapons and screams coming back to him. _It won't happen here,_ he thought to himself. _Even if it kills us. I swear it won't happen.__  
_

"…They'll be slaughtered. Every one of them. They won't stand a chance."

* * *

_(That's a frightening prediction! More on the way soon!)_


	5. Chapter 4

_Please leave reviews after reading! I could really use some feedback!_

_This story mixes elements of the Archie comics and the Shadow the Hedgehog game, along with my own original ideas._

_All Specters are my characters, and, to the best of my knowledge, the Drak and Locrun species have not been used by anyone else. Sonic and Co. belong to Sega._

_Enjoy!_

Chapter Four: Home Is Where the Heart Is

The _Tornado's _engine droned on as Tails started preparing the plane for its descent. They had flown for hours after leaving the Specters' ship behind, and they had spent much of the journey in silence, each of them pondering what they had been told. Sonic had looked back briefly when the plane had left the hangar, gazing at the strange sight of an open hangar door seemingly suspended in the air. After a moment, a blur had run down the length of the entrance, and the hangar entrance disappeared from view, leaving no trace of any ship ever being there. The valley looked completely empty, and there was no way to tell that a huge spacecraft was hovering in the air above it.

The words of the other blue hedgehog, the one who called himself Blitz, came back to Sonic. "We're ghosts," he had said. "The phantoms that whisper in the darkness and strike from the shadows."

_If they can conceal things like that ship so easily, it's no wonder they talk about themselves like that, _Sonic thought. He had been shaken at the news that Scourge was back from his long absence, and the thought of another fight with the green hedgehog definitely did not appeal to Sonic. They had only defeated Scourge last time due to his pride and lack of knowledge about his own Super state; Sonic doubted they could pull that off again. _I hope these guys can seriously bring him down…_

"Here we go, Sonic! We're going in for the landing!" Tails' words snapped Sonic out of his reverie, and he leaned out of his seat to see the city of New Mobotropolis growing before them. The transparent but ever-present shield that protected the city lowered, courtesy of NICOLE, and the _Tornado _glided in and came to a rest on the tarmac of the city's airfield before Tails cut the engine.

They were home.

* * *

As Sonic jumped from the back of the plane, he heard shouts of greeting and looked up to see several of the other Freedom Fighters running towards them, having obviously awaited their arrival. Amy got to them first, of course, and threw her arms around Sonic. "Hey, Sonic," she crooned, "how was the trip? You look exhausted!"

"Im fine, Amy. Although I won't be if you keep strangling me." Embarrased, the pink hedgehog stepped back as the others arrived and greeted the two reurning friends.

Sonic was glad to see his team was still doing alright. He looked them over as they arrived at the plane; Rotor the walrus, Bunnie D'Coolette, Amy Rose, and Cream the rabbit, along with her chao Cheese. Sally Acorn, their leader and friend, was just arriving behind a everyone else.

Sally walked up to Sonic and pulled him in for a long hug, burying her face in his shoulder. They held each other for a long moment as Tails greeted the others. _God, I'm glad he's safe,_ Sally thought. She stepped back and looked him over. "You look exhausted, Sonic," she said, "and… what happened to your face?"

"What, this?" Sonic asked, pointing to the faint bruise under the fur on his forehead. "It's nothing, just a quick accident. We didn't get into any fights or anything. That whole business in Downunda went without a hitch."

"Yeah, we heard that things were settling down now. Good job," she said, truly meaning it. There had been speculation by some of the council members that even Sonic might not be enough to calm the rising storm there. She had known otherwise, though. "And… you didn't… have any trouble on the way back?" she asked, giving him a pointed look. Sally and NICOLE had decided not to tell anyone else about the ships, and she didn't want to say anything in front of her friends. Not without knowing what was really going on.

Luckily, Sonic caught on. "Nah, things were quiet in the Blue Mountains. Didn't meet any locals or anything. At least no one came after us looking for a fight for once."

_So he did find them. And it seems they aren't a threat, hopefully. _"Sounds uneventful. Lucky you. We had some trouble ourselves," Sally told him, taking his hand and leading him into the city. "We'll catch you guys later!" Amy called, before she and Bunnie headed out to see Antoine, who was resting at home, while Tails and Rotor walked off to the workshop they shared, chattering about how the _Tornado _had been performing lately. Sally waved at the others before they disappeared from view, while Sonic gazed around at the wreckage that still remained from Eggman's recent attack. As they passed the Council Building, Sonic stopped them both and took in the damage that had been done. It was clear this fight had been fiercer than most others

"Looks like more than just 'some trouble'," he said. "This Eggman's work?"

"Well, yeah," Sally replied. "Metal Sonic and a crack team of Swatbots. Were you expecting someone else?" His silence and uneasy look were enough to make Sally nervous. Normally, Sonic would be raring to go and take on Eggman after seeing so much pain and destruction inflicted by his nemesis. This rather quiet side of Sonic was only present when he was focused on an enemy _other _than Eggman. The blue hedgehog suddenly turned to Sally with a stressed look on his face. "Look, Sal, I found out while I was out there-" She suddenly moved close to Sonic, making it appear that they were hugging again. She whispered in his ear, "Not here. NICOLE's module, 20 minutes," and broke away, walking up to the palace. Sonic knew better than to follow her after hearing that; it was all too obvious what she was thinking. If there were spies from Eggman in the city, they needed a safer place to talk.

And what he had to say was definitely not something they wanted reaching the doctor's ears.

* * *

"_Another _version of you?" Rotor asked, leaning forward in his seat in front of NICOLE's mainframe. The AI had discreetly assembled the Freedom Fighters down where her main processing computer was stored, a lab deep beneath Acorn Lake. Antoine had come with Bunnie, insisting over her protests, and now the injured coyote and his rabbit wife sat together in one corner of the room. Amy, Tails, and Sally all sat along the opposite wall, and now they listened as Sonic recounted what he and Tails had found in the Blue Mountains.

"Yeah, a different one," Sonic replied, "not like Zonic or Scourge. This guy… this guy was different. But I don't think he's evil. At least not enough to threaten us."

Sally let out a breath. She trusted Sonic's instincts enough on this. They had already dealt with enough trouble from Eggman; invaders from space would have been too much. Beyond that, though, a more important question had been racing through her mind while listening to Sonic describe the heavily armed ships and people he had seen. She turned to Tails before Sonic could speak again.

"Tails, I'd like to hear it from you. Do you think these people will help us?" she asked. From the sound of it, these newcomers could make very valuable allies against Eggman. Unfortunately, Tail's next words put those hopes to rest. "I don't think so, Sally," he replied. "They said they didn't consider Eggman as somebody worth fighting. They said they were here for… well…" He glanced at Sonic, not wanting to break the news.

"This other blue hedgehog we met? He's not the only faker we've gotta deal with right now," Sonic said. He grimaced. "According to these Specter guys, Scourge is out of that prison we sent him to, and he's come back to Mobius."

A collective groan ran through the room. Everyone there remembered the last time they had fought the green hedgehog, and how badly he had beat them all before he finally lost. Another round with Scourge was the last thing they needed with Eggman on the attack.

Sally shook her head at the thought of fighting Scourge again, but she quickly looked up and put determination into her voice as she addressed them. "I know this sounds bad, you guys, but we've beat him before. We'll do it again, and we'll get back to fighting Eggman. And if these people are really here to hunt Scourge, then I think it's best we leave that task to them."

Sally's words earned nods of approval from the others, as they were all happy to focus on Eggman and dish out some payback without interference from Scourge. Sonic then turned to Antoine to address his other concern. "Antoine, buddy," Sonic asked his fellow Freedom Fighter, "you sure you're gonna be able to go up against Eggman's bots with that back injury?"

"Vat, zis scrape from ze Metal Sonic? Eet is nothing, I vill stand against ze foes vith you all vhen ze time comes." The coyote stood, reaching a hand to Bunnie. "I vill be fine, but for now, I vill go get some more rest. Ve vill be ready vhen you call us, Princess." Bunnie stood and the couple walked out of the room. Bunnie called over shoulder, "You better get some rest too, sugah-hog. You're lookin mighty tired right now." Sonic sighed. "So I've heard…" He stood and followed the two out of the lab. "I'm gonna go see my folks. Night, all." The rest of them bade him good night, and Sonic departed. Amy stood and rushed out the door after him, trying to catch Sonic and talk to him before he got away.

Rotor waited untill the enthusiastic young hedgehog had left before swiveling in his chair and looking at Tails. His brow was furrowed as he addressed the young fox. "Sonic didn't mention anything about that second ship," the walrus noted. "Did these Specter guys not tell you anything about that?"

'I was wondering about it, too," Tails admitted. "They said the other ship was friendly and had been critically damaged by meteors, but I'm not sure I believe that. That other ship looked like it had been in a fight, and the damage I could see the Specters working on inside the ship... it didn't look like meteors hit them. And that's what worries me. If these Specter guys are here for Scourge, why would they be fighting another group?" NICOLE's avatar nodded at his statement. "There's no way that other ship was filled with friends of Scourge, either," she said. "I'll try to find out if any life forms left that ship after it crashed. I'll tell you all if I find something."

"Thank you, NICOLE," Sally said. "We're counting on you." She stood and walked out of the room, leaving Tails and Rotor to go over the data NICOLE had collected about the newcomers.

Once Sally had emerged from the secret entrance to the lab, she stood and breathed in the night air for a moment, looking at the stars twinkling overhead. A gust of wind rustled her brunette hair as she pondered what kind of fortune the strangers that those stars had dropped among them would bring.

Shaking the thoughts from her head, she set off for the palace, meaning to talk with Elias. Her brother might have a better notion as to what kind of action they should take.

She only hoped these Specters weren't going to create an even more chaotic situation. Mobius was already crazy enough for her.

* * *

The city slept. No lights shone through any of the windows, and the run-down buildings of Rock Bottom showed no signs of life. Wind blew down the streets, carrying pieces of discarded trash with it.

One piece flew through the air above the abandoned street, only to stop suddenly and fall to the ground. A moment later, an invisible pressure crushed the garbage into the ground before moving off of it. Small puffs of dust rose in a line that moved towards the woods near the town, and a branch shivered as something brushed it.

The motions stopped, and then the moonlight shimmered and a form appeared. The figure glanced back the way it had come before raising a hand and pressing the underside of its jaw, starting the collapse of the helmet that covered the figure's head. The compressed square of material vanished into the figure's gauntlet, and the lynx shook his head, enjoying the sudden cool air that hit his face.

Mick looked around for a second before bowing his head and standing still. An instant later, he glanced up and walked over to the tree a few paces into the forest from him. "It's all clear, you guys," he said. "No one followed." Another shimmer of light preceded the revealing of four more figures in black cloaks or armor. The five of them stood together in the trees, watching the quiet village.

"Anything?" one asked the young lynx. Mick nodded. "He's in there. Third building down the west road. The big inn." He glanced at the moon, judging from its position that they had a few hours left of true night. It wouldn't be long before the sun began to rise. He turned to the others. "Two of you guys go and get within safe comm distance of the battle cruiser. Tell Twelve that we've found our man, and that he's in position." He paused. "And tell him the enemy has as well, and that they are moving in. We were right." Two of the Specters nodded and moved away, melting into the darkness. Mick turned and resumed watching the town, looking for any signs of movement. All the while, thoughts of what would come in the next few days continued to plague him.

_Dad, Sam, all of you... please hurry._

_We've run out of time._

* * *

(_Please review! I want to know what you guys think so far! The action WILL heat up in the next chapter or two- big time!)_


	6. Chapter 5

_The action is about to kick off! Bear with me here!_

_This story mixes elements of the Archie comics and the Shadow the Hedgehog game, along with my own original ideas._

_All Specters are my characters, and, to the best of my knowledge, the Drak and Locrun species have not been used by anyone else. Sonic and Co. belong to Sega._

_Enjoy!_

Chapter 5: Gathering Storm

The sunlight filtering in through the windows was warm on Sonic's face. He gradually opened his eyes, taking his time waking up. It had been a long night, with his parents fussing over him and asking how his journey had been after seeing how worn down he was from the long trip to Downunda and back. He might have gone back to sleep, but at that moment he heard the one voice that he feared more than any other outside his window.

"Soooooooniiiiic!" Amy called. Groaning, Sonic rose from the bed and looked out his window. The young hedgehog girl who never stopped chasing him was now leaning on the fence around his house, gazing at the front door. When she saw him at the window, her face brightened and she said to him, 'There you are, sleepyhead! NICOLE sent me to wake you up since she's a little busy right now."

Sonic stretched and groaned, working off the weariness he still felt from his recent travels. "What's going on, Amy? Why is our all-powerful AI too busy to wake me up herself?" _And why did she have to send you…_

"She's with Elias and Sally, trying to figure something out. I'm not really sure what's going on, but she said I should go get you. Something about me having the best chance of forcing you to wake up… I'm not sure what she meant."

Sonic, on the other hand, could easily imagine why NICOLE would send Amy to get him. Amy would try to get all clingy with him, and Sonic would have to run. He had to admire the crafty A.I.'s planning.

"All right, I'll be out in a sec," Sonic told Amy. He threw his shoes on and dashed into the kitchen. "Goodmorningguysgottarunbye!" he said to his parents, grabbing a piece of toast from the table and speeding out the door. He zoomed past Amy, who called, "Hey, Sonic! Wait, don't you wanna…" The pink hedgehog gazed after the blue blur zooming away from her and huffed in annoyance before starting after him.

_If he thinks he can get away from me just like that, _she thought, _he's got another thing coming._

* * *

They were all bent over a map table when he entered the palace's conference room. Sally, Elias, NICOLE, and most of the Acorn Council stood around the table, listening to another person speak.

Sonic skidded to a halt when he saw who that other person was_._

Knuckles the Echidna, for whatever reason, had actually left Angel Island to come to New Mobotropolis. He was addressing the group around the table and pointing out a route on the map when his gaze lifted and he saw Sonic in the doorway.

Knuckles grinned. "You're late, Cool Blue," he said. "We've already got your day planned out for you." Sonic frowned at those words. "Nice to see you too, Rad Red," he replied. "So, what exactly are you _planning_ for me?" What's popped up that needs my attention?"

"Some creatures attacked Angel Island the other night. It got bad, and, well… if NICOLE is right about what she found, it could get worse soon." Sonic chuckled at that. "Must be bad if you actually abandoned the Master Emerald on the island," he teased.

"I didn't _abandon _it," the echidna replied with a glare. "I threw the creatures back from the island and came here afterward. Julie-Su and the Chaotix are watching the emerald for me. The only reason I left was because the creatures who attacked might come here, and I knew you weren't going to find out in time."

Sonic was even more confused by the Knuckles' words, but Sally noted the look on his face and pointed at a spot on the map. "We need you to travel to this region with Knuckles and Tails, Sonic. The Crags, in the east. There really isn't much time, so you're going to depart fairly quickly. Tails is out warming up the _Tornado _as we speak."

Sonic sighed. "Wow, one day in the city and we're already going back at it." He shook his head, grinning, and turned to Knuckles again. "You gonna tell me exactly what's going on while we're flying or something?" The Guardian nodded. "It's a bit of a tale. Thankfully, we've got a long flight ahead. Now let's get going, there's a good chance we're going to miss this chance anyway." Knuckles strode out of the room and left the palace. "I'll go make sure the Freedom fighters know what's up, Elias," Sally said. Her brother dismissed her with a wave of his hand, and Sally followed after Knuckles.

Sonic moved to leave as well, but Elias called him back. "Wait, Sonic," he said. "I'd like to speak with you about this trip." The blue hedgehog gazed back at the auburn-haired squirrel, curious as to what he wanted to say. "The council has decided, in light of recent evidence, to seal the kingdom's borders if this threat of… an extra-terrestrial army of invaders in confirmed."

_What the-,_ Sonic thought, _Sally said we wouldn't tell anyone else! _ He shifted in annoyance, but tried to put an amused look on his face. "Aliens?" he asked with a slight smirk. "Is that what Knuckles thought he was fighting?" Elias nodded. "His description of these things is like nothing we've heard of before. They can't have been from some hidden region of this planet."

"Your Majesty," Sonic said, "even if that is true, do you really think sealing off the kingdom is going to do anything? That kinda seems paranoid to-"

"The Council voted, Sonic. It's the course of action we will take." Even as Elias spoke, Sonic realized that the king felt the same about the decision of his fellow council members. Still, he knew from experience that Elias wouldn't cause strife by going against them. "If you and your friends aren't back before this mess reaches us, we've got no choice but to shut you out there. I'm sorry."

Sonic grimaced for a moment, but then his trademark cocky grin appeared on his features. "Don't worry about me, Elias," he said. "If we get stuck out there with these aliens or whatever, that just means there's more for me to knock around."

Elias smiled wearily. "Be careful out there, Sonic the hedgehog," he ordered him. "We don't need our greatest defender going and dying on us."

"Got it," Sonic replied. "You won't be seeing these things on our doorstep." He zoomed out of the room after Knuckles.

* * *

"Sonic, hold on," the hedgehog heard as he was about to exit through the great doors of the palace. The hedgehog turned and saw that Sally had been waiting for him. "It wasn't those Specters," she told him bluntly. "NICOLE confirmed that much. So don't get hostile with them immediately if it turns out they're involved with this."

Sonic shrugged. "Wasn't really planning to anyway. Those guys seemed pretty chill; I doubted they had anything to do with the attack on Angel Island in the first place."

Sally let a half-smile reach her lips. "That's... a rather restrained attitude for you. Maybe you won't actually go starting an interplanetary war, as NICOLE seems to believe."

Sonic laughed at her words. "I'll try to avoid anything like that, Sal. Although Knuckles is probably gonna bust my head if I keep them waiting much longer."

"Yeah, he probably will," Sally replied. She stepped forward and wrapped Sonic in a long hug, and the two of them stood there for a second, holding each other. "Just be careful out there, alright Sonic? This isn't something worth dying over."

Sonic paused, and then nodded. He dashed out and headed for the airfield.

It was time to get back in action.

* * *

"Just like old times, huh?" Knuckles asked, grinning at Sonic's obvious discomfort. Tails was back in the pilot's seat of the _Tornado_, and Knuckles had claimed the passenger seat behind him. Sonic had been forced to grab a seat on the plane's wing, and after a couple hours of keeping his balance on a moving aircraft, Sonic was starting to get sore.

"What do you mean, Knux?" Sonic asked. "You know, the three of us, heading out to beat up someone or find a Chaos Emerald or all that other stuff we get into all the time. Here we are, back at it again," the echidna replied. Sonic had to admit he was right, and he grew nostalgic as he thought about their many adventures that had started like this. The plane jolted, though, and he was thrown back into the present as he struggled to stay upright on the wing.

The plane droned on, the engine's rumble making Sonic's head ache as they continued their flight. Tails flew the plane over the Eastern Sea, heading for the distant land of the Crags. The great mountains stretched far across the face of Mobius, further than even the Blue Mountains, and they were sparsely inhabited. However, one big city was nestled in the valleys of those mighty hills. Rock Bottom, home to the thieves and scum of Mobius' underworld.

It was this city that Knuckles thought the creatures were headed towards.

Sonic was intrigued by Knuckles' description of the attack on Angel Island. The echidna launched into the tale once they had gotten up into the air, and Sonic asked him all about their new enemies.

"Big, hulking things with a lot of red and black coloring all over their bodies. Bright eyes, weird speech, the whole bit. I've never seen anything like them in the world before," Knuckles had said. "I really don't think there's a chance that they're anything _but _aliens. The ones with weapons… their weapons aren't like ours. And these things are _strong_. I had to take them on two or three at a time at the most. Anymore and they would start pushing me back. It was a pretty crazy fight…"

"Were there any ships there?" Sonic asked. "Black and red coloring like you described? Like, really big ships?"

"No. Just a bunch of them on foot," Knuckles replied. "Have you seen these things in ships before?" Sonic shook his head. "We saw a crashed ship with those colors, but we didn't find anything like these creatures you're talking about." He looked at the Guardian curiously. "What makes you think they're headed to Rock Bottom anyway? What would they want there?"

"Beats me," Knuckles replied, "but when the ones that attacked Angel Island retreated, I saw more moving across the rivers that flow to the west of the Crags. All of them linked up and kept going towards the mountains. Can you think of anywhere else in that region they could be going?"

Sonic frowned and looked away, troubled. At least Eggman was a predictable enemy, one that could always be counted on to fight how he was expected to. Sonic hated facing opponents that made irrational moves or were just plain crazy. Even more off-putting was the fact that the creatures apparently hadn't been interested in the Master Emerald, the main reason why anyone ever attacked Angel Island. Knuckles had told them how several of the creatures had simply appeared and rushed him, while others had hauled a strange device deep into the forest. Knuckles had defeated his attackers and gone after them.

"When the ones with the device saw I was coming after them, they just dropped it and ran. More of them kept coming at me, but that one group never turned and fought. I don't know what they were trying to accomplish, but once I drove them from the island, I took that device down into Haven and checked it out. The machines didn't find anything."

If the high-tech lair of the Brotherhood of Guardians was satisfied that the strange device was safe, then so was Sonic. "Guess we don't have to worry about that, then," he said. "We can focus on finding out what these creatures are looking for in-"

"Um, guys?" Tails broke in. He was staring ahead at the mountains that were growing in the distance. Even from dozens of miles away, the size of the Crags made them easy to see from a low altitude.

The numerous blasts of light going off throughout the valleys were also easy to see, even from so far away.

"What in the hell…." Sonic muttered, seeing what Tails had spotted a moment ago. The Crags were lit up as more blasts went off on the sides of the mountains. As the _Tornado _drew closer, the three friends could see the dark shapes of aircraft weaving over the peaks at high speeds. Every few moments, one of them would burst apart in the air or spiral down to crash into the hills. Fire was spreading among the trees of forests that had fallen victim to the weapons of the battling vessels.

"Okay, we are _not _landing in that mess," Sonic said. "Tails, can you find us a good landing place at the entrance to one of the valleys?"

"I don't know," Tails said. "It might take a while, and I don't think we have that kind of time right now. Not with that many potentially hostile aircraft above the Crags."

"Then get us close above one of the mountains," Sonic replied. 'We'll do this the fun way." He looked at Knuckles and grinned eagerly. "Ready to make an entrance, buddy?"

The echidna grinned back at him. "Let's do it." The _Tornado _flew in closer to the mountains, approaching the peak of one of the larger ones. Above them, black and red fighters chased after opposing craft with white finish and a streamlined look to them, and the battling aircraft traded shots of glowing purple energy that seemed to rent the air apart and tore up the sides of the Crags or the fighters they were aimed at.

"Alright, you two, this is as close as we'll go!" Tails shouted. "Go for it!"

"Stay out of the aerial fight, Tails! Keep an eye on things, but don't get involved with that battle!" Sonic shouted, before turning and facing the mountain below them. Knuckles stood in his seat and tensed, getting ready.

The plane flew directly over the peak of the mountain.

They jumped.

* * *

_Damn fools, _Wes thought, _this is one fight they shouldn't get involved in._ He could understand the echidna's wish for some payback after the Black Arms had hit his island, but this was one hell of a firestorm the Mobians were throwing themselves into.

_Nothing we can do about it, though, _the jackal thought, before hitting his comm switch and his thrusters simultaneously, speeding up to catch the fleeing group of Siren fighters he was pursuing. The radio of his Stryker activated as he lined up a shot on the rear fighter. "Wes, report," he heard Lana shouting over the sounds of a battle cruiser bridge in action, "what's wrong?"

"Sonic the Hedgehog and Knuckles the Echidna are dropping uinto the mountains," Wes replied. He prepped his s-rockets as he continued. "Whoever is in contact with Mick, have them tell the kid to dispatch a few of his guys and get the two to safety. Or hell, have him get to them himself. I can't cover them from up here, it's too hot." To emphasize his point, Wes fired, blowing the targeted Siren out of the sky. The ace pilot deftly swerved his fighter to avoid the return fire from the downed craft's wingman.

"Alright, we'll take care of it," he heard Lana reply, before the words "Port side! Port side!" could be heard being shouted from somewhere on the bridge, and a massive boom sounded. The comm channel fell silent.

"Oh, hell," Wes muttered, "don't be dying on me, guys…."

The Stryker flew on, plunging into the storm of metal and fire that rent the skies above the Crags apart.

* * *

(_Alright, here we go! Next chapter will be the first that truly features Specters in action! Please leave reviews if you could!)_


	7. Chapter 6

_This is the official start of the Rock Bottom Arc. There will be two more arcs after this one, and of the three, two will prominently feature the Black Arms, and one will feature Eggman._

_This story mixes elements of the Archie comics and the Shadow the Hedgehog game, as well as my own original ideas._

_All Specters are my characters, and, to the best of my knowledge, the Drak and Locrun species have not been used by anyone else. Sonic and Co. belong to Sega._

_Enjoy!_

* * *

Chapter Six: Welcome to the Big Leagues

As soon as his shoes hit the rocky turf of the Crags, Sonic took off, speeding down the mountain. The wind rushed past him as he dodged the fallen trees and large pits that dotted the mountainside, making his way down the slope at high speed. Off to his right, Sonic could see Knuckles gliding down a ravine, taking a direct route to the city of Rock Bottom. Sonic, having been forced to take a more roundabout way by the peaks and dips of the mountains, ran as fast as he could to keep up with the echidna.

The blue blur zoomed into a thicket of trees that had remained standing, and Sonic lost sight of Knuckles and the ships that were battling overhead. He spun dashed a tree and used it as a bridge to cross another ravine in his path, and in seconds Sonic burst out of the trees.

Right into the path of an oncoming rocket.

Sonic yelped and ducked, sliding along the ground without losing speed as the rocket passed over his head, so close that he could feel the wind from its propellant. The rocket detonated on the ground not fifty feet behind him and knocked Sonic off his feet, sending the hedgehog flying.

Sonic rolled along the rocky turf, trying to regain his footing. He shook his head and looked around, taking a second to stare at the large crater that had been carved into the mountainside. _Can't let one of those hit me,_ he thought. _I'm not sure a power ring is gonna do anything against a blast like that._

Knuckles had brought a power ring for each of them from Angel Island, and now all three of the friends had a level of protection against whatever they were getting themselves into. The Guardian had warned them of the strength of these new foes, and he didn't want a careless mistake to spell the end for any of them.

Sonic doubted, however, that a power ring would keep him safe in the confusion below. As he got back up and raced along a cliff face, looking for a safe way down, Sonic got a good look at the forces that were fighting amongst the valleys and ravines of the Crags. Hundreds of black figures clashed together on the ground below him, and blasts of energy from the weapons they carried were keeping the area well lit, despite the encroaching darkness that was following the setting sun. Guttural shouts and loud battle-cries rose from among the sounds of clashing blades and firing lasers.

Even at the height he was at, Sonic could still make out the black cloaks that many of the battling figures wore.

_Figures that they're here, _Sonic thought. _Maybe we'll finally find out just what these Specters really want._

So enthralled was the blue hedgehog in the spectacle below him that he didn't even see the body until his shoe hit its leg and he went flying again.

Sonic recovered much more quickly this time, pushing off from the ground as he fell and flipping, and he managed to land on his feet and slow to a stop. He looked back to see what he had tripped on, and his eyes widened as he took in the sight.

The corpse of a large creature lay on the cliff side behind him. It was easily several feet taller than Sonic, and its shape seemed distinctly humanoid. However, it was obvious the thing wasn't human at all. The head was too rounded and bulbous, the face was oddly featureless, its hands and feet ended in large claws, and the upper torso was bulky and unnaturally muscled. If Sonic had ever seen an alien, it was definitely this thing.

He also noted that its skin was colored dark black and red, just like Knuckles had described.

_He was right, _Sonic realized. _Those things did come here after Angel Island. And…_

Upon closer inspection, Sonic could see the hole in the creature's forehead, set right between its large, yellow, pupil-lacking eyes. A thin fluorescent substance, blood no doubt, was leaking from the hole. Next to the creature, a long rifle-like weapon lay dropped on the rocks, with more blood coating it. To call it a gun seemed fair, but the weapon looked nothing like any weapon he had seen before, with curves and edges on it that made the weapon look almost organic. From the look of things, the alien had been shooting from the elevated position of the mountain and been shot in return.

…_And it seems they've found a tougher fight than Knuckles could give them. This could get ugly…_

Sonic turned from the gruesome sight and continued on his way down the mountain, heading for the slope he could now see Knuckles descending across. The echidna was flying down the mountain at a high speed, making his way for the city, where Sonic could see heavy fighting taking place on the outskirts.

As Knuckles flew down the mountain, flashes of purple light began to strike the rocks around him. Sonic tried to find where they were coming from and saw a group of the red and black creatures emerging from behind a huge pile of stones, steadily firing at the Guardian with the bulky weapons they held in their hands. Sonic could also see large jagged blades, made of some sort of red metal, slung across some of the creatures' backs. Knuckles landed and charged at them, ripping up a tree and using it as a shield until he reached the group. Smashing into the creatures with the tree, he leaped among them and began pummeling the aliens with his spiked fists. One alien after another hit the ground or went flying. For every one that dropped beneath the echidna's onslaught, though, two seemed ready to take their places- and the ones that fell got up fairly quickly and rejoined the fight. Soon Knuckles was being pushed back as he tried to evade the swords and beams of the aliens.

Speeding up, Sonic raced towards the fight, desperate to save his beleaguered friend.

* * *

The _Tornado _slowed to a stop, and Tails cut the engine. He had landed in a large cave dug into the side of one of the Crags. Here, the plane would be sheltered from the vicious fighting taking place in the skies above, as well as being concealed from anyone on the ground. Quickly, Tails strapped on his arm cannon and made sure it was well loaded. He was in a hurry to go after Sonic and Knuckles and help them out.

He'd only barely started towards the exit, though, when a loud banging started coming from the inside of his plane. Tails turned around and stared as the _Tornado's _cargo hatch came flying off, skidding across the cave floor.

A large hammer stuck out of the plane from where it had whacked the hatch off.

_Oh Walkers, no, _Tails thought, as the hammer was withdrawn and Amy Rose herself crawled out of the plane. She got stuck on the hatch, though, and when the young hedgehog pulled herself free, she tumbled out of the plane and landed with an "Oof!"

Amy got up, brushing her dress off and glaring at Tails, who was watching her, dumbstruck. "What's wrong with you?" she asked, picking up her Piko Hammer from where it had fallen. "Are you going to help me save Sonic or what?"

"Amy, what the heck? You stowed away on my plane?" Tails was getting past the shock of seeing her and was starting to get mad. "It's really dangerous out here. Why did you sneak along with us?"

"Hey, Sonic's been running off on me too much lately, and if he thinks he's going on another trip and leaving me behind, he's got another thing coming!" Amy swung her hammer in agitation, and Tails backed off, a little concerned and still somewhat angered. "And you should really try to build a bigger plane, Tails. It's too cramped for a comfy flight!"

"Well, it's not built to harbor stowaways, you know…" he muttered. He didn't have time to fly her back to the city, and for all they knew, Sonic and Knuckles were already caught up in the fighting.

Before Tails could decide what to do, Amy charged towards the cave exit, shouting over her shoulder "Come on, you dummy! Let's go already!" Tails watched her run off for a second before sighing and following after her, loading his cannon and making sure he had lots of rounds ready.

_Sally is gonna flip out at all of us when she hears about this_, he thought, exiting the cave and flying up to the top of the mountain they were on, where Amy already stood, gazing down into the valleys below. From here, they could both see the massive fight that was raging all around the city of Rock Bottom. Black shapes scrambled across cliffs and through trees that surrounded the city as they fired at one another with their odd laser weapons.

Even as Tails and Amy watched, a large but strangely soundless explosion went off in a flash of pulsing light at the edge of the city, blowing a building to smithereens. More buildings crumbled under the blast, and swarms of figures surged into the city, where laser fire erupted as more figures seemed to rise up everywhere in the streets and move to confront them.

Tails was engrossed in the battle, but Amy was looking elsewhere. Suddenly she grabbed his arm and pointed, shouting "Look! Down on that hill!" Tails followed her gaze and saw the flashes of light going off near a large copse of trees, as well as the blue shape that whirled between a group of black and red creatures, knocking them all flying.

Tails didn't even hesitate; he spun his tails up and took off across the mountain, heading towards where Sonic was fighting the creatures. Behind him, Amy followed with her hammer raised, ready to bust some heads alongside the hedgehog of her dreams.

* * *

The alien went flying, crashing into a thick tree and knocking it over. Sonic slowed to a stop and looked around, searching for the next threat. Another creature was moving at him, sword raised, but Knuckles intercepted it before it could reach Sonic. The echidna slammed the creature into a rock, shattering it, before throwing his adversary to the ground and pummeling its face again and again. Sonic rushed past him in a blur and rammed into the next creature in the group, who had been moving to assist his comrade; the alien was rocked back by the blow, but it landed on its feet and took a swing at Sonic with its sword. Sonic jumped, evading the blow, and went into a spin dash, hitting the alien on the head and knocking it down. It tried to get up again, but then Knuckles grabbed another one of the aliens as it tried to shoot him and threw it, causing it to collide with its companion. The echidna then ripped up another tree and smashed it into the pair, knocking both the aliens out.

Sonic hadn't seen Knuckles fight like this in a while; then again, _he _was fighting far more aggressively than he did when facing Eggman's robots. And their efforts were barely earning them room to breathe. The aliens were _tough,_ getting back up again and again as Sonic and Knuckles beat them into the dirt. Only incredibly strong blows or a sustained assault was making the aliens stay down.

And Sonic knew there were too many to keep a fight like this up forever.

More creatures had joined the fight since Sonic had arrived to back up Knuckles, pouring out of the woods near the base of the hill and adding the fire from their weapons to that of the aliens that were already fighting the duo. Now Sonic and Knuckles were fighting back to back, striking out and dodging the alien's attacks as they fought for their lives.

_We need to change things up, _Sonic thought. _This is getting us nowhere. _Thinking quickly, the Blue Blur began running in a circle around Knuckles as fast as he could. The speed of his movement whirled the air around them into a mini-tornado, sucking many aliens up into the air. Sonic stopped running and whirled, jumping straight up into the air and going into a spin dash. He began jumping between the airborne creatures with his Homing Attack, smashing into them and sending them all flying. Many of the less fortunate ones fell to the earth only to be punched away with a heavy blow by Knuckles. Between Sonic and Knuckles, over half the aliens that had joined the fight were knocked down and lay where they fell, groaning in a guttural language.

But it wasn't enough.

Out of the corner of his eye, Sonic could see the alien he had sent into a tree earlier coming at them again, angling its gun-like weapon so it could shoot past its brethren to hit them. Sonic opened his mouth to warn Knuckles, but before he could, a yellow ray flew past them and struck the creature in its head. The blast knocked it down again, and this time the creature stayed down, seemingly stunned by the hit.

Behind them, Tails descended from above the trees, firing his arm cannon repeatedly at the creatures surrounding Sonic and Knuckles. His shots struck several more aliens, and they were knocked back or staggered by the blasts, giving Sonic and Knuckles time to attack the blindsided enemies. Sonic swiftly revved into a spin dash and raced between the creatures, striking them full force and knocking them into the ground, while Knuckles brought both his fists down in a hammer blow that smashed the area around them and sent several more aliens flying.

At the same time, a few aliens that had been trying to get around Sonic and Knuckle's flank suddenly turned and ran headlong back towards their companions as a pink blur came charging out of the forest, yelling at them to turn and fight. Amy caught up to one alien and smashed its legs with her hammer, knocking it off its feet, before she landed a second hit that knocked the alien out cold. The pink hedgehog continued after the fleeing creatures, knocking one after another away with her hammer.

She left the creatures in the mud and ran up to Sonic and Knuckles, who had pulled away from the field they had been fighting in, as Tails landed beside them at the same time, reloading his cannon. The four friends stood together and rested for a moment, breathing heavily, as they watched the black and red creatures picking themselves up off the ground or crawling away, eventually merging into a big group that watched the four Mobians from the safety of an opposite cluster of trees.

Sonic had been keeping an eye on the creatures, looking for a trick or a second attack, but he did a double take when he realized Amy had joined them. "Amy?!" he asked in shock. "What are you-"

"I'm not gonna keep sitting around and letting you keep running off without me, you know!" the pink hedgehog berated him. "If you're going to get yourself into a big fight, then I'm going to fight right beside you! No one's gonna hurt _my _Sonic!"

_Oh, for the love of…_, Sonic groaned to himself. He didn't have time to be keeping an eye on Amy. They were barely holding their own against these new enemies. "Tails," the blue hedgehog asked in exasperation, 'how did she get here?"

"She snuck into the plane's cargo space," the fox replied. "I didn't really want to try forcing her to go home. She… well…"

Sonic understood how Amy could get when she was dead set on chasing him. He turned back to Amy, who was staring at the aliens across the field, eagerly twirling her hammer in her hands.

"Listen, Amy, you need to…" Sonic began, and then he saw the flashes from the trees behind the aliens.

"DOWN!" Sonic roared as he tackled Tails, dragging the fox to the ground with him as the trees around them started exploding. In the next instant, Sonic heard Knuckles yell, a sharp _crack_, Amy's shriek, and two thuds next to him. At the same time, something punched Sonic in the chest, and he felt his power ring shatter, just before a sharp pain burned across his leg. He gritted his teeth at the sudden pain and hugged the ground, praying to Aurora that the next shot wouldn't find anything vital.

Silence fell.

Sonic slowly opened his eyes and sat up, watching warily for another burst of fire. When he tried standing, though, his leg buckled, and he groaned, looking down at his wound.

A large gash ran across his calf where something had grazed him. His leg throbbed with pain, and Sonic was starting to lose feeling below the cut. What looked like a burn mark was spread across his chest fur; Sonic assumed his power ring had saved him from a shot that hit him there. Looking around, he saw all three of the power rings they had brought with them lying broken on the ground. Realizing what this could mean, Sonic frantically glanced at his friends.

Knuckles was down, teeth bared as he gripped his shoulder, blood dripping between his fingers. Amy had apparently tried to block a shot with her hammer; the remains of the Piko hammer were strewn around her, and a large splinter seemed to have burst from it right into her side. The pink hedgehog was bent over, gripping the wound and trying not to whimper.

Tails was groaning, rubbing the blackened fur on his head. Sonic realized that his friend had taken a direct headshot. _By the Walkers, _the hedgehog thought, _if we didn't have the rings…_

When Tails looked up from the ground where he had landed, he suddenly paled and grabbed at his arm cannon, trying to load another round. "Sonic…" he muttered, "we've got a problem…"

Sonic glanced over at where the group of beat-up aliens had been huddling a minute ago. They were all advancing again, but now they were led by two creatures that differed from the ones behind them. These new aliens had the same distinctly humanoid shape, but they looked a bit taller, their arms and legs looked more limber than muscular, and- most oddly of all- what looked like organic spikes rose from their elbows, knees, and shoulders, giving them a sort of naturally armored look. The spikes were colored red like much of the rest of their bodies, but they were streaked through with a dakrer color, almost a blood-red hue. In their hands, the new aliens held bow-like weapons that shimmered with strange fields of energy that stretched between the bows' bodies.

Staring at the four friends with expressionless red eyes, the aliens lifted their bows and drew back on them, a long shaft of brilliant purple light brightening within each of the energy fields.

Sonic tried to stand and get ready to fight, but his leg wouldn't work properly. The feeling of numbness had spread across his entire leg now. _Have to get up, _he thought. _Have to get up. Have to…_

The first alien took aim at Sonic's head and straightened the arm holding the purple shaft.

And its head exploded.

The creature fell to the ground as its fingers reflexively released the shaft, which flew off and carved a trench through the ground a short distance away. The laser shot that had taken its head apart slammed into the first of the shorter aliens behind it, drilling through its arm and sending it reeling away, roaring in pain. As many of the aliens froze and looked around, searching for the shooter, the wounded alien broke away from the group and charged at the Mobians, swinging its sword with one hand and roaring in its guttural voice.

It only took a few steps away from its comrades before it suddenly tripped and flew into the air, roaring in surprise now. A loud thud sounded as something struck the alien, accelerating its fall. An instant later, the roars ceased as the alien's throat was slashed open by an unseen force, its blood flowing out and joining the pool growing from the headless corpse of the first spiked alien.

The other creatures shouted upon seeing this and all drew their blades together, moving apart and seeming to search for something. One shouted and swung at the air, but the sword passed through without stopping. The alien then buckled as a large chuck of its leg was carved out as if a cleaver had passed through it. Something punched a hole in the alien's face and it fell over backwards, dead. Sonic and the others stared, uncomprehending, as one by one, the aliens in the clearing began to get cut down by what seemed like invisible blades

The remaining spiked alien's eyes widened as it panicked and it whirled around, sprinting away from the slaughter. As it made for the trees at the base of the hill, it grabbed a sword from one of the few remaining shorter aliens and jerked to the right, swinging its sword at the same time.

The sword hit an unseen force, and light flared along the outline of an invisible figure. The spiked alien drove its sword forward with all its strength, and light blurred as the figure's camo failed.

Matte-black armor covered the figure Sonic now recognized as a Specter. The armor covered the person from head to toe, the different segments fused together by concentric sets of fibers into a seamless covering that completely concealed the figure's identity. The Specter wore no cloak, and the holster of its rifle was clearly visible. The eyeholes of the helmet shone white with some sort of internal light, and where the mouth would normally be, the emblem of a large, elaborate spear and a short sword covered with runes that crossed over each other was carved onto a closed plate instead. A short glowing blade, seemingly filled with internal purple fire, shook in the Specters hands as it strained against the large sword the spiked alien held.

The alien roared and lashed out with its foot, kicking the Specter's leg. The strike made the Specter stagger backwards, but he steadied himself with his other foot and swung his blade in an ascending arc, which the spiked alien caught on its own blade. The two figures traded a flurry of blows as the last of the other aliens were cut down by the swords and lasers of the Specters that started appearing out of thin air. The last two aliens ran towards their taller companion, perhaps in an effort to free it of its burden and fight their way out together, but both were shot in the back by the sniper who had felled the first spiked alien.

The last surviving alien suddenly jumped, clearing the head of the Specter it was fighting. The Specter turned to attack it, but the alien was faster, swinging its sword into its opponent's helmeted head and knocking him to the ground. As the Specter fell, the creature threw its blade at the other Specters and kept moving, passing into the trees. The fallen Specter rolled over on the ground and slid its rifle out, firing a long burst of lasers after the fleeing alien, but the creature dodged the shots and vanished into the forest.

The Specter watched the woods for a moment before shaking its head and standing up, holding its scratched helmet. With effort, he managed to grasp a release under his neck and pull his helmet off.

Tails gasped, while Sonic slowly recognized the revealed face. It wasn't even a guy after all. It was none other than Lana, the female wombat they had met onboard the hidden ship of the Specters. She shook her purple-stained blade off, sending drops of blood flying, and walked back towards where the rest of the Specters were checking to ensure the aliens were all dead.

Next to Sonic, another Specter shimmered into existence and dropped to one knee, removing its helmet. Mick the lynx, now carrying a long rifle equipped with a narrow scope in his hands, put a hand on the blue hedgehog's shoulder and said something, but Sonic couldn't hear what it was. A fog seemed to be sliding in around them, and the distant noises of ships flying about and weapons going off in the hills were fading. Dimly, he realized that someone had picked him up and was carrying him. A flash of red appeared next to him; a limp spiked fist dangled between two black forms. He thought he could hear Amy's voice.

Sonic's eyes closed.

* * *

_(Well, that's the start of this arc. Long one, too. There will be a much bigger and better fight taking place soon, won't say exactly when, but I will say this: I think my two favorite OC's will be introduced within the next chapter. Drop me a review about how my first fight scene seemed!)_


	8. Chapter 7

_This next chapter will be less action-filled than the last one, but the lull will be brief. If you're eager for more action, never fear; we'll be back into the fighting in no time. And in the meantime, we still get to see an old grudge flare up. Read on to see who's involved._

_This story mixes elements of the Archie Comics and the Shadow the Hedgehog game, as well as my own original ideas._

_All Specters are my characters, and, to the best of my knowledge, the Drak and Locrun species have not been used by anyone else. Sonic and Co. belong to Sega._

_Enjoy!_

Chapter Seven: Old Wounds

The blinding light that flashed in front of Knuckles' eyes when he opened them annoyed him at first, but then he realized it was a good sign.

It meant he wasn't dead.

The echidna didn't even try to rise from the cot he was lying on; his shoulder was so sore he knew it would be too much trouble. Instead, he looked around, wondering where he and his friends had been taken.

A large hall stretched on either side of him, filled with cots similar to the ones he was laying on. Many people were simply resting in the cots, while the ones nearest to him were occupied with other injured people, some of whom were obviously citizens of Rock Bottom, based on their rugged looks and worn clothes, while others wore the black cloaks of the Specters Sonic had told him about. The smell of sickness and injuries was starting to reach him, and Knuckles looked elsewhere, struggling to focus on something other than the stench.

The light that shone at him came from a hanging crystal chandelier, sparkling and brilliant. Similar chandeliers dotted the ceiling as intervals along the hall, which had grandly decorated walls, high ornate windows, and slot machines pushed back from the floor. A huge sign at the hall's entrance read Mogul's Casino and Resort.

With a start, Knuckles realized he was in the famed casino owned and operated by Mammoth Mogul, the retired criminal/demigod and a longtime enemy. Forgetting about his shoulder, the echidna tried to get out of his cot to find out what the heck was going on, but the sudden spike of pain forced him to drop back down, groaning.

"Hey, careful, careful" a voice behind him said in sudden alarm. "Take it easy, big man."

A pair of arms gripped Knuckles under the shoulders and hoisted him up. The echidna gritted his teeth at the flaring pain. The person assisting him pulled Knuckles to the side until the echidna could get his legs onto the floor. Knuckles sat with his head down for a moment, dizzy from the ache in his shoulder.

"Sorry about that," the voice said, a low hiss underlying the speech. "You need to get on your feet and walk around a bit. Work the poisoning out of your system." The person speaking to him sounded female, and seemed genuinely concerned about the pain he was in. Knuckles looked up in gratitude.

A strange reptilian figure stood before him. She wore a black cloak of the Specters, but it was drawn back so she could carry a small tray of instruments. Beneath the cloak, orange scales with a bright reddish hue crossed over her body, which seemed oddly jointed at the shoulders and knees, as if she might get down and crawl on all fours at any moment. Knuckles noted that she wasn't wearing the armor-deploying straps that the other Specters had. Her face, while it could be considered pretty, had a distinctive snout to it, and the teeth within were all very pointed. The curved claws at the ends of her paws looked sharp enough to shred metal, yet she carried the small tray with delicacy. However, her oddest feature by far was the emerald green gem lodged deep in the base of her throat, which glowed with faint swirling lines as if the light beneath the surface lived.

"Um, thanks… thanks for the help," Knuckles stammered. 'Who… what are…?"

"A Drak," the female replied. "I can imagine you've never met one of my kind before. You all seem very backwards on this world, you know that? I admit I was surprised when the others told us you people had never heard even a rumor about the Specters before." Her completely yellow eyes, almost empty save for small black dots where the pupils should have been, seemed to look him over with a touch of contempt.

Knuckles merely shook his head, trying to clear it. He still felt groggy from passing out in such a fashion. The last thing he remembered was the screams of the dying aliens and the pain spreading from the burning hole in his shoulder…

"Wait, the others!" Knuckles exclaimed. "My friends! Are they alright?!"

"They're fine, boy, they're all alive. I'll take you to see them now if you want."

Knuckles nodded. "That would be great. If you don't mind me asking, what actually happened to me?"

"You got lucky," the Drak said. "That wound in your shoulder is from a normal blaster shot. If one of the Ranger's arrows had hit you there, you'd have been dead in 3 minutes. Seems a Drone got a little overeager and fired before the Rangers did."

"Um, Rangers? Drones? What are you talking about?" Knuckles asked, utterly lost.

"The black and red things that attacked you. Are you telling me you've never heard of the Black Arms, boy?"

"No, I haven't," Knuckles replied, a little indignant. "And don't call me boy. This whole day's been pretty confusing already, all these new groups dropping onto our planet…" Knuckles stood, swinging his arm in a circle to make sure he could move it properly. "I'd like to go see my friends now, if that's okay with you, Ms….?"

"Keralya," the Drak replied. "Call me Ker, Mr. Knuckles. Follow me." She turned and walked away between the cots containing injured Specters and civilians, who were receiving care from other cloaked people carrying medical-looking instruments.

Knuckles followed after the- _Drak, she called herself, _Knuckles thought. _Whatever those are._ - trying not to bump into the injured lying around him. He could see hundreds more people milling around inside the great hall of the casino, standing in groups or simply resting. Their low talking filled the hall with a muted undertone of voices. After all the fighting Knuckles had seen going on in the Crags, he imagined these people would all be fairly tired.

"Hey, Ker, was it?" Knuckles called after the female Drak he was following. "How do you know who I am?"

"Your little friend, the pink female one, told us much more than the oddity with two tails did before. She was very adamant we focus our main medical efforts on you and the blue rodent man."

Knuckles burst into laughter at that, making Keralya look back over her shoulder at him. "What amuses you?" she asked in a confused tone. "That's an interesting description of Sonic," Knuckles replied, a broad smirk on his face. "I'll make sure to slip that one by him…"

"You won't be able to talk to your blue friend quite yet, Mobian," Keralya stated. "He's not in any shape to be conversing with anyone. Especially if all you would be doing is antagonizing him."

"Yeah, right," Knuckles said with a snort. "He couldn't have gotten hurt nearly as badly as me or Amy-"

"He nearly died."

The echidna stopped talking and stared at the Drak as she approached a wide door labeled Manager's Office. Knuckles was too shocked by what she had just said to realize who would be inside.

"Died…?" Knuckles asked quietly, astonished. "What happened? I saw him before I passed out; he only had a leg wound." Keralya paused with her claws on the door's handle, her eyes on him with that same look of contempt in the yellow orbs. "You have quite a bit to learn about your new foe, echidna," she stated. "Now get inside. You're the last one to get here, and they've already been discussing the plan for tomorrow."

She opened the door and walked in. Knuckles, a little disoriented and not sure what was going on, followed her through.

When he stepped inside, the echidna took one look around the room and thought to himself, _And here I was thinking my day was already as bad as it could get._

"Hey, Knuckles, old buddy," Scourge the Hedgehog growled with an evil grin, "long time no see."

* * *

Tails, Knuckles, and Amy sat in a corner of the gigantic office, remaining silent as they watched the group gathered around the big table in the middle of the room. Around the walls, dozens of Specters and a few other Mobians- including Scourge and the assorted members of the Destructix- were sitting in the chairs that had been pulled into a rough square around the map the central group was perusing, and many of the observers were nursing one injury or another as they watched.

Blitz the Hedgehog, his blindfold around his face and a bandage around his flesh-and-blood forearm, leaned over a layout of the Crags that surrounded Rock Bottom. Around the map stood all of his subordinates- Mick, sniper rifle slung across his back, looking over the map before them; Lana, wiping dried blood off her short sword; Wes, one side of his face bandaged after having his head smashed into his fighter's canopy; and Carlisle, a dagger in his hand, glowing with the same inner fire as Lana's sword, tapping out a rhythm on the table.

Beside the five Specters sat Mammoth Mogul, his thick arms folded and his polished tusks shining in the light of the great chandelier hanging above them, its radiance gleaming even brighter than that of the smaller chandeliers in the adjacent hall. The retired criminal's massive head stood far above the Specters, even though the mammoth was sitting, and Mogul had to look almost straight down to see what the Specters were pointing out on the map. If this bothered the criminal at all, Knuckles couldn't see any sign of his discomfort.

Every so often, Scourge would leer at the three friends from where he sat, one arm slung around the shoulders of Fiona Fox, his loyal girlfriend. The other members of the Destructix- Sergeant Simian, Flying Frog, Lightning Lynx, and Predator Hawk- were completely ignoring the Freedom Fighters on the other side of the room. They all had bandages and bruises on various parts of their bodies, except for Scourge, whose hot rod jacket and red shades were fresh and flashy as ever.

Knuckles realized the Destructix must have gotten caught up in the fighting that day, just as him and his friends had.

Outside, the sun was now completely set behind the Crags, and darkness reigned in the moonless night. The fancy chandeliers and lamps in the walls provided enough illumination, however, for Knuckles to see that Blitz, the leader that Tails had pointed out of the group of black-cloaked Specters, was tensed up, his shoulders hunched and his shortened quills on end.

Knuckles and Tails had seen that posture before, when Sonic was getting anxious. This guy being another version of Sonic- which Knuckles would _never _have believed if Scourge hadn't shown up- it was likely that he was feeling the same.

"We can't evacuate them all at once if we take the safe routes," Blitz murmured, rubbing the scars around his face in thought. And I don't want to split our battle group in a fight. At this point, we need all our numbers."

Knuckles leaned over to Tails. "What are they discussing?" he asked in a whisper. Tails kept his eyes on the group around the table as he whispered back. "They're going to try to get the city's population out of the Crags tomorrow," the fox answered. "Blitz said he wanted to move his Specters and the civilians out as a group, but that Wes guy doesn't think an airlift or a climb up the mountains can be done with all those alien ships out there."

Mammoth Mogul, who had been sitting quietly as the commanding group of Specters muttered to each other, reached out and pointed to a spot on the map. "If you are going to bring them all out, it will be here," he said. "There is no other way for so many to exit this valley and not be surrounded." Blitz rested on the table, his artificial arm gripping the edge, pondering the mammoth's words. "The battle cruiser's disabled after the hit it took today," he said. "We can't go by air now; maybe..."

The room was silent as everyone pondered the situation, wondering what the next day might have in store for them.

Finally, the scarred hedgehog stood up straight, his cloak shifting on his shoulders. "Alright, Mick, I've seen enough," he said, gesturing at his young second-in-command. The lynx blinked, his pupils swelling and shrinking quickly, before he too stood, shaking his head a little.

Tails remembered part of the conversation he had been having with the Specters on their ship a couple days ago- how Mick, who was apparently a partial psychic, had become the eyes of Blitz by letting the blinded commander see everything Mick could see through his mind. It was a fascinating subject, and Tails had been about to inquire about it more when Sonic had arrived and Blitz had explained the more important facts to them.

Or actually, as was now clear, Blitz had lied to them, completely and utterly.

The young fox had been astonished and furious to learn that not only was Scourge _not _the Specter's objective on Mobius, but that they had let the green hedgehog loose on the planet for several days to apparently set a trap for the black and red creatures.

"The Black Arms, they're called," Carlisle had told them earlier, while the leopard sat next to Tails and Amy, waiting for other Specters to arrive in Mogul's office. "We've dealt with them a lot before. They're here for a hedgehog; we know nothing other than that. We planted Scourge and his band of goons on the planet, leaked information to the Black Arms bastards about a hedgehog we were looking for, they moved to capture him, and, well…" Carlisle had waved a paw around in the air, as if indicating the besieged city, the army of aliens somewhere out in the mountains, and the fighting that had taken place. "Welcome to our world."

Tails thought about the name Carlisle had given them. The Black Arms. A new enemy to fight, a new threat to protect their friends and family from…

_Nothing ever changes, _Tails realized. _There's always a new enemy somewhere. We'll be doing this stuff forever, Sonic and the rest of us._

He was snapped out of his reverie by Blitz's curt voice, the hedgehog addressing a pair of Specters while holding his hand to his ear, listening to the miniscule communication device Tails had seen on all of the Specters.

"If he's up to meeting with everyone, go fetch him," Blitz said. "He'll want to hear what we have to say."

The two Specters departed, and the commander turned to the three freedom Fighters, who sat up straighter when they realized he was going to speak to them.

"Sonic's up, and apparently completely coherent," Blitz told them. "He'll be joining us in a second."

Knuckles paled, glancing over at Scourge and the Destructix, who were suddenly sitting straight up, watching Blitz attentively. After the massive fight Scourge and Sonic had waged to determine the fate of Scourge's home world, as well as Mobius itself, the echidna doubted that Sonic and Scourge meeting face to face would end well.

Amy exclaimed, "Well, finally! That lazy bum should've been tougher and stayed awake anyway!" She had obviously failed to notice the tension filling the room, and Amy strode over to the door to go get Sonic, oblivious to the chilling silence behind her.

Amy pulled the door open, and there stood Sonic, a thick cast around his injured leg and a weary grin on his face. The injured hero limped into the room, grabbing Amy's shoulder for support.

"Sorry about that, you guys," he said, addressing Knuckles, Tails, and Amy. "Guess those things were better than we thought. Can you believe Mogul's letting the Specters use this place for th-"

Sonic's words died in his throat as he glanced around the room and saw Scourge.

For a moment that seemed to last hours, the two hedgehogs stared at each other. Scourge was on his feet, having shrugged Fiona's restraining hand off him and slowly risen. Sonic had let go of Amy's shoulder, and although the pink hedgehog had tried to grab Sonic's wrist, he had shaken her loose and taken a hesitant step forward, his face blank.

"Hello, Scourge," Sonic said carefully.

"Sonic. What's up?" the green hedgehog replied with equal restraint.

"These Specter guys told me that they were hunting you down. That you busted out of the No-Zone."

"Guess they didn't feel like telling you the truth, then. I'm apparently useful for them; I help these guys, I stay out of the prison. Pretty fair, huh?"

Sonic nodded slowly. "Yep. Very fair."

Scourge nodded as well, his eyes glaring into Sonic's. The two of them looked at each other for a moment longer.

And then Scourge and Sonic launched themselves forwards.

Everyone in the room had surged to their feet at the same time that the two hedgehogs moved, but now there was chaos as Specters and Mobians alike tried to get out of the way of the fight. The map table was knocked over, chairs went flying, and Mick and Wes both had to dive out of the way as the blue and green blurs smashed through the room at an incredible speed, fists lashing out and beating on each other with blows too fast to follow.

Knuckles tried to lunge at the pair and separate them, but a spin dash by Scourge carried both the hedgehogs into the echidna, knocking him down and sending pain shooting from Knuckles' shoulder into the rest of his body. The echidna groaned at the pain, while Sonic retaliated by punching Scourge in the jaw so hard his teeth clicked together.

Mammoth Mogul had stepped back against the wall as the brawling hedgehogs had flown past him, but now as they continued to tear up his office, the demigod's eyes narrowed and he approached the scrambling pair.

"You are wrecking my office," Mogul said in voice that was studiously free of any emotion. "Take this outside." The mammoth flicked his wrist at Sonic and Scourge.

A wave of psychokinetic force punched into the two and sent them through the wall of the room and out of the building, where they smashed into the main street of Rock Bottom amid pieces of flying rubble.

Scourge was on his feet immediately, his face twisted in fury, but Sonic was slower, his injured leg slowing him down considerably. The blue hedgehog only had one knee under him before Scourge's shoe connected with his face and Sonic keeled over.

Tails had expected the two of them to turn on Mogul, but the hedgehogs completely ignored the mammoth and kept on battering each other. _Should have known that was going to happen, _the fox thought to himself. He moved away from the wall and ran over to Knuckles, who was back on his feet, rubbing his injured shoulder. "Come on, Knuckles!" the young fox exclaimed. "We've gotta go keep this from getting out of hand!"

Knuckles nodded, and the two of them ran towards the hole in the wall, Amy right on their heels.

* * *

Inside Mogul's office, Blitx reached down and grabbed Wes' hand, pulling him up from the floor. Another Specter did the same for Mick, while Lana and Carlisle both leapt out through the hole in the wall of Mogul's office, guns drawn and up. Blitz shouted after them, "Hold your fire! You don't know which one you'll hit!" From outside, the thuds and grunts of the fighting hedgehogs were starting to fade as the fight moved away from the building.

The three Freedom Fighters and the Destructix poured out into the street, watching their brawling leaders pummel one another. Knuckles glared at Fiona, but she stared right back at him with an even look in her eyes. "Don't even think about it, Knuckles," Fiona warned him. "We're going to let this run its course." Knuckles doubted she or anyone else actually wanted to get close to the two hedgehogs anyway; anyone who did would most likely get hurt without changing anything.

Out on the street, Sonic got his good leg under Scourge and kicked the green hedgehog flying, struggling to his feet as Scourge landed, the air rushing out of his lungs all at once. Both hedgehogs rose again, eyes locked in rage, before Scourge sprinted at high speed at Sonic, one fist raised to punch Sonic's face in.

As intent as the green hedgehog was on his hated rival, he didn't see the flash of metal in the air ahead of him, gleaming in the light from the breached casino.

The flat of a large blade slammed into Scourge's face, sending him sprawling into the dirt in front of Sonic, who took the opportunity to leap at Scourge in an attempt to finish the green hedgehog before he could recover. Before the blow could land, though, Sonic felt a hand grasp his leg, and then he was flying through the night air, only to be smashed right on top of Scourge.

Scourge snarled and tried to shove Sonic off of him. "Get your blue ass off me, you pathetic-"

A boot drove into Sonic's back and pinned the struggling hedgehogs to the ground. Sonic sucked in a breath at the pain, and then he forgot to let it out as a large sword slammed into the dirt not three inches from their heads. The two hedgehogs stared at the sword that had come frighteningly close to taking their faces off, as above them, a deep voice said, "I wasn't expecting to find the natives turning on each other, Twelve. What happened here?"

Sonic turned his head upwards and gazed upon the person who was restraining him.

A black cloak like that of every Specter covered the figure. But while most of the Specters Sonic had seen had hoods that were drawn partway back, this Specter wore a hood that concealed all of his face except his mouth. Black fur ran along his body, and a belt holding a pouch and a sheathed dagger circled his waist. Toned muscles lay underneath the fur on the figure's arms, and a large scar ran across his right palm, which gripped the sword's handle tightly. The sword itself, which Sonic recognized as a Black Arms blade, looked a little different than those carried by the Drones and Rangers they had fought yesterday. A second later, the blue hedgehog realized why- runes matching the ones adorning the blade in the Specters' emblem were etched into the metal.

That same emblem of a crossed spear and sword, which was normally unconcealed on the back of every Specter's cloak, was partially obscured by the large sheath that hung on the figure's back. However, the sheath did not hide the large number 1 seated above the crossed blades.

One of the Specters in the back of the group that had run out to stop the fight muttered, "Holy shit, a First…"

Blitz, who had been stunned into silence by the figure's arrival, lifted his head sharply upon finding himself addressed by his informal title. "They're old enemies, Demon," he answered, "with a big grudge between the two of them."

What little of the new Specter's mouth that could be seen broke into a small grin. "Sort of like you and me, Twelve? Or do these two actually have something serious to fight about?"

Blitz clenched his fist. "And it's not your place to call me that," he continued. "I don't know why the Ironheart sent you here, and I honestly don't care. You should have contacted me or my subordinates before waltzing in like you know what to do. We have a plan ready, and it doesn't involve-"

"Yeah, yeah, you and your precious plans," the figure spat back before he could finish, sarcasm in his voice. "You can't do anything unless every decision is your own, is that it?" He took his foot off Sonic's back, releasing the blue and green hedgehogs. "Up, you two," he ordered, his sword pointed straight at them. "Get up and cut the 'mortal enemies' act. The Black Arms will eat you two alive soon enough; no reason to deprive them of a meal, is there?"

Sonic and Scourge, who had pushed each other away and risen to their feet, brushing themselves off, did not reply and backed away warily. They joined their respective groups, still watching the new Specter, who had placed his sword back in its sheath and started walking into the casino. The other Specters had all put their weapons away upon seeing the fight being resolved, and they now all moved out of the way as the figure entered the building.

As he walked through the hole, the Specter turned to Blitz briefly. "Let's make one thing very clear, Blitz," he muttered quietly. "I'm only going to stick around and help your battle group until Angel gets here. When she does, we're going to clean this mess of yours up our own way. You screwed up real bad, you know." He left the scarred hedgehog behind as Blitz's metal fist clenched even harder.

"Where are you going, Demon?" he asked, the scars around his hidden eyes tightening. "You and I aren't done here. What's the situation with Commander McGregor and his group?"

Demon turned, glaring back at the Specter commander from under his hood. "There is no situation, Twelve. Liam's already in orbit, hunting down those two ships you so kindly allowed to float right onto Mobius unopposed, and his first few teams are dropping tomorrow. And you and I _are _done here." He turned and walked through the hole in the casino wall. Mammoth Mogul watched the Specter stride by him impassively, and for a moment, Sonic thought he saw something like excitement flash through the demigod's eyes. A moment later, though, Mogul turned and waved his hand around his office, using his power to start returning the room to its proper state.

Sonic limped over, moving next to Blitz. "What was that all about, Blitz?" he asked his scarred counterpart. "What are you guys talking about? Who's Liam? And who's _that _jerk?"

Blitz turned his sightless gaze to the hedgehog. "Liam is the leader of the Seventh. They must have gotten here right after the two ships we didn't shoot down dropped this horde on us." His face turned back to the inside of the casino. "And that jerk that just kicked your ass is called the Demon's Blade; Demon for short. A Specter of the First battle group." He grimaced. "One of our legendary heroes. Nice guy, huh?"

Sonic did not answer that; instead he asked, "That sword… it looked like the ones those Black Arms were using. How did he-?"

"Demon's got a long history," Blitz cut him off, "and he has a lot more on his mind than most of us. He also understands our enemy very well. And he knows how to scare them like nothing else could." The Specter paused, some odd emotion flickering over his face. "Suffice to say, as much as I may dislike the bastard… he's saved many more lives than I ever have or ever will. With him here, tomorrow may not end as badly as I feared."

The blind Specter snapped his fingers, drawing everyone's attention. "Alright, people, show's over. At least it better be." He glanced at Scourge, who scowled before turning and withdrawing into the casino, the Destructix following after him. The other Specters followed suit, except for Mick, who stayed outside the casino, glancing around with a hand on his rifle.

"They won't be in the city tonight, Mick," Blitz told him. "Go inside and get some rest. It'll be a long day tomorrow."

As the young lynx nodded and withdrew inside with the other Specters, Blitz turned back to Sonic. "Listen, Sonic, I don't know what happened between you and Scourge, and I don't want to know. I didn't believe a word he told us anyway. However, the fool made the mistake of believing every word we told him-"

"Like we did, I suppose," Sonic commented as they re-entered the casino through the breached wall. "Why didn't you tell us that you aren't hunting Scourge after all? That you're here to fight some evil alien group or whatever?"

Blitz grimaced. "Yeah, sorry about that. Trust me when I say any deception we may have pulled on you was necessary. But everything's going to be cleared up tomorrow. We'll save the city's people and take out the rest of the Black arms. And Scourge _will_ be out of your hair soon. I can promise you that much."

Sonic glared at him. "I'm not sure I can take your promises seriously. Honestly, was anything you said to us a few days ago _not_ complete BS?"

Blitz bought for a second. "The Black Arms really are actually far worse at space situations than we are. It's why we were able to fight our way out of the trap they set for us. Aside from that... yeah, nearly everything else was false."

Sonic wasn't sure he believed Blitz, seeing as the Specters had ended up crashing into the planet just as the aliens had, but after his brawl with Scourge, the injuries from the fight with the Black Arms were flaring up, and Sonic just wanted to rest now.

Tonight, they'd recover and pray that Scourge didn't start anything else.

But tomorrow promised to be a _very_ interesting day.

* * *

_(So, I didn't get to give Demon quite as much of an introduction as I wanted. Him and my other good OC are going to have to wait until the next chapter, I guess. I think the next chapter is going to be my favorite one in the series so far. Please favorite and review if you feel like it!) _


	9. Chapter 8

_It's time to go to war._

_This story mixes elements of the Archie comics and the Shadow the hedgehog game, along with my own original ideas._

_All Specters are my characters, and, to the best of my knowledge the Drak or Locrun species have not been used by anyone else. Sonic and Co. belong to Sega._

_Enjoy!_

Chapter 8: A New Kind Of Hell

The light emerging over the mountains struck the clouds above Rock Bottom, turning the sky pink and blue as the sun rose. The air was brisk, but the sunlight flowing over the peaks made the temperature tolerable, if not warm. A light breeze rustled the branches of the forests that covered the Crags, and a stillness that covered everything save for the singing of birds gave the valley around the city an eerie beauty.

It would have been a peaceful sight if it weren't for the black and red river snaking through the mountains towards the city.

The morning light glinted off of Mick's rifle sight as the lynx watched the massive army emerge from the forests and lakebeds that lay at the foot of the Crags and start making its way towards Rock Bottom. They emerged from caves, from behind rock formations, and from ravines that snaked through the mountains. They moved across the peaks of the mountains and the slopes in single file lines that betrayed their numbers. Even from a distance, the rumbling of the marching army shook the ground of the city. The many groups of creatures converged at the end of the valley, filling it until the green of grass and trees had disappeared underneath the colors of the alien force.

And above it all, the drums.

The thrice-damned war drums of the Black Arms. How he hated them. Mick could see the Drones who carried them, cannon fodder who were lucky enough to have a different task for once. Their strength allowed the Drones to beat the drums till the vibrations echoed off the sides of the Crags and filled the city with a booming that had woken Mick up after he had gotten only a few hours of sleep. The young Specter was _pissed._

_At least it's not Executioners beating those drums, _Mick thought to himself. The Executioners, the nightmares of every Specter who didn't fly with one of the first ten battle groups, would have been bursting eardrums with the unbelievable strength they possessed. Thankfully, Mick could not see a single one of the hulking monsters within the huge army that was marshaling a scant mile from the city. A handful of Rangers, visible amongst the Drones due to their spikes and bows, were all that could be seen leading the army of their small cousins.

"This doesn't make sense," Mick muttered aloud. "Rangers couldn't lead an army of this size. There have to be at least eleven thousand of them out there. There should be one or more Shamans in the back, but I can't see the buggers anywhere."

"They could be directing the fight from one of the ships in orbit…" Blitz responded, deep in thought. Besides Mick, about two dozen other Specters of the Twelfth stood with their commander on the roof of Mammoth Mogul's casino, watching their enemies prepare for the coming battle. Mick wasn't listening to the thoughts of his fellow Specters, but he still knew what they were all thinking.

This was one fight they wouldn't win without a miracle.

Given that the 500 Specters of the Seventh battle group were already somewhere over Mobius, such a miracle might actually be in reach. However, the Demon's Blade had said nothing about when he expected Commander McGregor and the rest of the Seventh to make their move. In fact, the mysterious Specter from the First had disappeared the previous night after breaking up the brawl between Scourge and Sonic, and no one had seen him that morning.

They could only hope that he was up to something that would bolster their efforts. In the meantime, the Twelfth Specters would meet the Black Arms force in urban combat, covering the roughly three thousand Mobians who inhabited the city as they made their escape.

In the light of the early morning, the great crowd assembled in the streets below could be seen milling around, anxiety heavy in the air. It had been decided that they would wait until the Twelfth had the Black Arms' full attention before the Mobians would move through the city and evacuate along the western roads, covered by Blitz, Mick, Carlisle and a few of their best Specters, as well as the ace Stryker squadron that flew with Wes.

While Scourge and Lana would lead the force of Specters who would divert the Black Arms' attention.

Sonic had argued with Blitz after the fight with Scourge; he, like Tails, was greatly angered by the lies the scarred hedgehog had told them. The fact that Blitz would trust the green villain to fight for them made Sonic think that the Specter commander might be a little crazy, but Blitz had remained steadfast.

"He won't betray us. We've got too much dangling over him, and he's not going to give up his one chance to stay out of the No Zone prison." The Specter had spoken with confidence, and Sonic and his friends had no choice but to believe Blitz.

Caught up in his own thoughts, Mick's head shot up in surprise when he heard someone mutter, "Here they come…" The lynx quickly noticed that the drums had stopped, replaced by the massive rumble of thousands of feet pounding the dirt as the Black Arms force charged forward.

In the distance, the roar of ten thousand Drones shouting at once rose into the air, and the rumbling of their approach grew in volume until the whole world seemed to shake with the noise. Blitz watched the horde approach, his metal hand flexing in anticipation. "I've always hated that noise," the scarred hedgehog commented, reaching a hand up to his comm device. "Lana, how's the welcoming party coming along?"

Lana's voice responded over the sound of the charging Black Arms. "We're ready for them. All entrances are covered and we've got the traps primed. First ones into the city will be toast in seconds." There was a pause, and then she added, "Scourge just got here. He's ready to go."

"Good," Blitz said. "Hold him back until they've pushed into the first layer of buildings. I want Scourge engaging targets one at a time. We can't let them focus their forces on him, and they'll see through our ploy."

Lana responded with an affirmative, and Blitz cut off the communication. Mick stood and picked up his rifle, walking behind Blitz as the Specters all moved towards the stairs. Blitz pressed a release in his gauntlet as he walked, and the matte black helmet of his armor unfolded into being.

Pulling the helmet down over his head, Blitz then pressed another release on the straps beneath his cloak, and the rest of his armor began sliding out of the straps and around his body, encasing him in the strong fibers until the hedgehog was completely covered in the armor, white light glaring out of his eye holes. Blitz drew his handgun and pushed an orb of S-plasma into it, and the loaded weapon glowed with faint purple light.

"All right, people," he said aloud, "let's go die a good death, you hear?"

As one, the Specters with him all shouted in agreement, their voices echoing off the buildings around them.

All except Mick, who kept his eyes on the sky as his armor deployed, praying for the ships of the Seventh to descend and save them from the horror to come.

* * *

Lana peered out the window of the building she was positioned in, watching the approaching horde. Beside her, Scourge and Wes both watched the approaching army, Wes with a look of apprehension on his face, Scourge with an almost hungry glint in his eye. All throughout the streets around them, Specters were lying in wait, ready to spring the traps they had prepared.

_This will become a slaughter very quickly, _Lana thought, before turning to Wes. "Get out of here, Wes," the wombat said, "and get your people ready. We can't have Sirens distracting us if we're going to delay them long enough." Wes nodded and moved away, heading for the exit that led to the plaza where his Stryker squadron was heated up, ready to surprise the first Black Arms fighters to enter the skies above Rock Bottom.

Lana turned back to the window, one hand gripping the windowsill tightly. The walls were starting to shake from the thundering footsteps of the Black Arms, now no more than a few hundred yards away.

"Tell me, Scourge," she murmured. Her voice was low, as if she was engrossed in thoughts about the coming storm of death. "We took you out of the No Zone jail temporarily because you could be useful to us. Do you really consider it something worth dying to stay out of?"

"Oh, I don't plan on dying today, sweetheart," Scourge growled, his voice sarcastic and cocky as ever. "I'm gonna give these freaks one hell of a fight, and I'm gonna enjoy breaking them like twigs."

"Of course you will," Lana replied, grimacing. "But there's a very good chance we'll all be dead before the sun has finished ascending. You could have just left yourself imprisoned on our battle cruiser and stayed out of this."

"And then the next group of you Specter weirdoes would drag me back to the prison," Scourge said. "My kind, we live free to run wherever we want, whenever we want. Sonic will tell you the same thing." He paused, an almost thoughtful look on his face for once. "Honestly, now that you guys have found me, and I'm not getting away to do as I please ever again… maybe it _would_ be best if I don't leave this fight alive."

Lana glanced at him, surprised enough to take her eyes off the approaching army. Scourge noticed her look and grinned again as he continued. "Yeah, I don't plan on dying, but I don't deny it could happen, and hey- this is one hell of a party to go out with."

Before the wombat could reply, her comm piece crackled. "Lana," a Specter reported over the noise of the Black Arms, "they're within 50 meters of the first line. Ready for your mark."

Lana watched as the Black Arms charged forward towards the street entrance, muscled Drones and spiked Rangers swinging their weapons and roaring with blood-lust. The first few charged through the boundaries of Rock Bottom, and the rest of the army began pouring into the city.

"Do it," Lana said quietly, loading her weapon as she watched.

Explosions rocked the buildings on the outskirts of the city. The entire front rank of Black Arms collapsed as the bombs readied by the Specters tore through the buildings they were planted in and ripped holes in the lines of aliens. Green blood filled the air and splattered against walls as many Drones and Rangers were literally blown to pieces. At the same time, lasers filled the air as Specter snipers opened fire on the horde of aliens, gunning many of them down.

The Black Arms pushed forward, returning fire and slogging through the blood of their vanguard. Their own lasers, along with the glowing shafts from the bows of Rangers, forced many of the Specters firing on them to duck or risk getting shot in the head. Lana's armor finished deploying around her as she watched the Black Arms push past the first line of defense and enter the city.

"Alright, then," Lana said. "Let's get started, shall we?"

Scourge grinned. "Hell yeah."

Lana raised her weapon, firing two shots and cracking the window in front of her. She ran at it and dove through, shattering it completely and raining glass around her. The Drone directly below her only had time to gape at the black shape hurtling toward it before a short sword pierced the top of its skull.

Lana withdrew her blade from the alien's skull and raised it to the sky, blood flying in an arc above her.

"Specters of the Twelfth!" she shouted. "ATTACK!"

And with a roar, almost four hundred Specters swarmed out from the buildings around the Black Arms, rushing forward and enveloping the condensed Black Arms force immediately. Swords and guns clashed as the two forces met each other head to head.

The battle for Rock Bottom had begun.

* * *

Sonic could hear the fighting starting up north of them, the sounds of lasers firing and steel clashing filling the air. Carlisle paused in the act of putting his helmet on, listening to the roars and shouts that reached them from the battle. Sonic wondered if he might have been thinking about the Specters who could be dying even now, but the leopard simply connected his helmet to his armor, the fibers binding together and the white light in front of his eyes flickering to life.

"Alright, guys, let's get them moving," Carlisle told the other Specters, and as the shouts went down along the crowd of Mobians, the entire population of Rock Bottom began walking along the streets, traveling at a brisk pace as they set off through the besieged city.

Sonic and Knuckles raced ahead of the group, moving up ahead with Carlisle and half the Specters who were protecting the people of Rock Bottom. They would clear a path through the city and open up the roads to the west, while Tails, Amy, and the Specters with them shepherded the civilians through the fight. Tails and Amy, recovered from their first fight, had also wanted to fight alongside Sonic and Knuckles, but Blitz had refused to send them to the front of the fight. Instead, they would hang back and keep an eye on the evacuation from amongst the other Mobians. Surprisingly, Scourge had told his Destructix to help them, and now the gang was participating in the operation alongside the Freedom Fighters and Specters.

As Sonic ran forward, watching for any Black Arms, he realized that the smell of smoke was growing on the breeze. A fire seemed to have already been started by the battle. "Do you smell that?" he asked Knuckles, who nodded and replied, "I'll keep the path clear. Get up top and see if there's fire somewhere up ahead. We'll take a different street if necessary."

Sonic quickly realized what he meant; looking around would do nothing with all the buildings in the way. Sonic accelerated to an incredible speed and raced up the side of a tall house to his right. He didn't see any fire blocking the path of the approaching crowd of Mobians, so he waved down to Knuckles, shouting, "It's all clear! Tell everyone to get going; I'll stay up high and keep an eye on things!" Knuckles gave him a thumbs-up and then waved the crowd forward. Mobians pushed through the streets and kept moving, the large crowd running quickly towards the roads out of the city.

Sonic started looking over the rest of the city, wondering where the fire could be. He couldn't see where the smoke was coming from, but what he _could _see made him realize just what he and his friends had gotten themselves into by coming here.

The Black Arms had pushed rapidly into the city, their great numbers allowing them to surge through the outer streets while soaking up everything the Specters could throw at them. Sonic could see bodies littering the streets leading into Rock Bottom from where the Black Arms had made their initial charge, the gravel underneath stained green with blood.

Now, however, the alien army had been sufficiently split by the city's layout that the Specters could fully engage the Black Arms, and a savage battle was underway in the streets and buildings of the northwest section of Rock Bottom. Heavily armed Drones and Rangers blasted away at the buildings around them or charged forward with swords in hand, where they were met by Specters who dropped their camo and moved to engage the Black Arms. The Specters moved with skill and speed, their glowing blades flashing through the morning light and cutting through the aliens like grass. The purple light from their blazing guns made the blood covering everything shine brightly. Like the ghosts they sought to emulate, the Specters moved through the Black Arms faster than the aliens could react, firing point blank into faces and hacking off limbs. The Twelfth fought their way through the streets of Rock Bottom in a harvest of death, felling hundreds of Black Arms and leaving the streets running with blood behind them.

For all their obviously superior skill in combat, though, the Specters were heavily outnumbered. As Sonic watched, a Ranger burst through a window next to a Specter who was already fighting three Drones at once. Before the Specter could turn, the large sword in the Ranger's hand cut into his side, opening his armor and slicing his ribs open. The Specter dropped his sword and fell, blood pooling beneath him. Another Specter brought a Drone down with a blade to the neck, only to be gunned down from behind by another alien, his armor failing to protect the Specter at such a close range.

Sonic stared at the bodies in the street and realized that many of them weren't Black Arms after all; for all the casualties the Specters had caused for the aliens, they had taken heavy losses themselves. The dead were everywhere, and as the battle progressed and the fighting moved through the city, more and more bodies piled up all over Rock Bottom until it began to resemble an abattoir. Specters and Black Arms struggled throughout the city, both forces hacking each other to pieces as the Twelfth covered the flight of the refugees.

Sonic was starting to feel sick from watching the gruesome slaughter, and he suddenly had to turn away, retching. The hedgehog leaned over, breathing deeply. Nothing he had seen before could even slightly compare to this nightmare.

Wiping his mouth and looking back up, Sonic caught a flash of green fur in his vision. He watched as Scourge raced through the streets, a green blur that left one alien after another broken in his wake. Scourge sped straight at a Ranger, who tried to fire its bow and pierce the green hedgehog's heart, but the shaft was only drawn halfway back before Scourge's leg slammed into the alien and broke its neck.

As the alien fell like a puppet with cut strings, Sonic saw a sadistic grin stretched across the green villain's face.

Sonic watched for a moment longer, than turned away, disgusted. It was just like Scourge to be enjoying himself in a fight as brutal as this one. Sonic raced away from the horrible battle and ran after the refugees, who by now had made it over halfway out of the city.

As Sonic moved across the rooftops, leaping from one building to the next and racing around the various balconies or housing implements in his way, he heard a large explosion from way up ahead, and he ducked instinctively as a ship came roaring over the rooftop, fire pouring from its side, and smashed into a building across the street, erupting into a fireball.

A Stryker flew overhead, weapons blazing and discharging a stream of S-plasma, which tore through the buildings ahead and blasted an intersection a block away from Sonic. More Strykers emerged out of the smoke that was starting to fill the sky above Rock Bottom, performing similar strafing runs. Even when several Black Arms ships appeared and began firing at the Specter fighters in an attempt to down them, the Strykers ignored their opponents and kept blasting away at the city.

Sonic realized that they were trying to protect the Mobian refugees who were evacuating the city from something, and he sped up until he was going several hundred miles an hour, tearing across the rooftops of Rock Bottom. At such a high speed, it didn't take long for Sonic to arrive at the location of the crowd of civilians, now just a few blocks away from the exit of the city.

When he arrived there, though, it immediately became clear that they weren't going to make it any farther. Specters and Mobians alike were hugging walls or hiding in buildings, trying to stay out of a massive fight that was waging further up the street. Under closer scrutiny, Sonic finally saw what the Strykers had been so concerned about.

_Something _was moving through a cloud of smoke and rubble, lashing out and tearing the street apart. A roar, so loud it shook windows up and down the street, burst from the thing's throat, and Sonic watched as the shape swung what looked like a massive version of the Drones' swords at a Specter. The armored warrior tried to block with its own sword, but the humongous blade smashed into the Specter and sent him flying across the street and through a wall.

The shape in the smoke raised its other arm, and a bright purple light, glowing out of some weapon carried by the monster, started growing brighter in the cloud. The Specter tried to struggle out of the collapsed wall, but he was pinned by rubble and obviously dizzy from the blow he had taken. He only had time to look up at the monster and freeze.

And then the weapon went off.

The shockwave from the fired weapon blew the smoke away in every direction, and the monster turned back towards the Mobians and Specters down the street as it glowed in the light of the huge explosion that vaporized the Specter and half of the building.

Sonic could only stare in shock at the revealed creature. _Sweet Aurora, what is that thing?_

The alien was massive, easily standing at least twice as high as the tall Rangers. Large spikes that made the Rangers' armor look like nubs protruded from its back, and the oversized head had an odd crescent shape to it at either temple. The arms, thick as tree trunks, looked like they were muscled enough to crush boulders into dust, and the huge sword, jagged and made of red steel like those of the other aliens, but obviously far heavier, swung in its hands like a toothpick. A large cannon-like weapon, bearing what Sonic thought was a slight resemblance to Tail's own weapon, still glowed faintly after having unleashed such destructive power.

The humongous alien slammed its sword against a building on its right and roared a challenge to the Specters up and down the street, its voice echoing over the roofs. In the distance, Sonic thought he heard a similar roar sounded a moment later, but he couldn't be sure with all the noise from the battle raging through the city. Even the sounds of the fighting were drowned out, though, when a Stryker thundered overhead and dove at the alien, weapons firing and impacting on the big creature, as well as everything around it. Rubble and rocks flew everywhere, but when the scene cleared, the alien was still standing, albeit smoking somewhat.

_If there are more than a few of these things, we're history, _Sonic thought, before he turned upon hearing his name being shouted above the din. Down on the street below, he saw Knuckles waving frantically from inside an alley, so Sonic leapt from the rooftop and skidded down a wall, landing and rolling on the street in a spin dash. He ducked into the alley as another blast from the large alien's cannon tore apart a shop halfway up the street.

"Enjoy your little sightseeing tour, Sonic?" a voice asked. Sonic saw an armored figure standing behind Knuckles, and he recognized the Specter as Carlisle, a rifle gripped tightly in his hands. "We miss anything exciting while we were down here?"

"Not really," Sonic replied. "It's… it's pretty ugly out there."

"Yeah, that tends to happen whenever Specters and Black Arms have a reunion." Carlisle slid a latch on his rifle backwards and pushed a glowing purple orb of ammo inside. "We're trying our hardest to finish this evacuation, but as you can see, we're not going anywhere until Big Boy out there gets taken care of. Speaking of which…"

The leopard gestured at Knuckles, who nodded and stepped out of the alley, a ball of Chaos Energy building in his hand. The echidna swung his arm and threw the condensed Chaos, which tore down the street, throwing up rocks and bricks as it ripped apart whatever it touched before impacting on the huge alien's torso. The resulting explosion barely made the creature stumble back, but it roared and swung its cannon around, and Knuckles stepped quickly back into the alley as the street in front of them began blowing apart from the return fire.

"What the hell is that thing, anyway?" Sonic asked, swatting away a piece of rubble that flew at his face. "It's obviously not one of these Drones or Rangers you've told us about. I don't even know if I'll be able to bring that thing down myself."

"I'd be surprised if you could," Carlisle replied. "It's an Executioner; we weren't aware they had any on Mobius yet. Where the Black Arms have been hiding them, I have no idea…"

"Them? There's more?" The thought of an army of the things gave Sonic chills.

"Maybe a dozen or so scattered through the city. We're not really sure how many are here or where exactly they are, but there's at least two blocking our way out of here. We've got a plan to deal with this one."

Sonic glanced out at the street, where Specters were popping out of cover to fire off single shots at the Executioner before ducking away, desperate to avoid the crushing power of its weapons. Sonic turned back to Carlisle, saying, "I'm all ears; we've gotta shut that thing down. What's the plan?"

* * *

The smoke above Rock Bottom was growing in thickness, the fires supplying it growing in number quickly. Frequent flashes from the weapons of the fighting armies were causing the smoke to glow with color, giving it an odd purple-and-black tint. The smell of the smoke was being carried throughout the entire city by the strong breeze.

As was the stench of burning flesh.

Tails wrinkled his nose, trying to fight the nausea brought on by the awful smell. The wind had just started blowing in their direction, and as the young fox flew across the rooftops over the intersection where the Executioner was rampaging, he was getting an all-too-clear whiff of the scent of beings that had been caught in fire.

Shaking his head and trying to ignore the smells assaulting his nose, Tails landed a few buildings away from the Executioner, staying out of the fight as ordered by Blitz. Tails watched as the large alien roared and swung its huge sword at a Specter who had been trying to land a cut on its leg. The Specter ducked away and brought a gun to bear on the Executioner, but the big red sword was already swinging again, and the gun was smashed from the Specter's grip, the black-armored warrior staggering back while cradling an injured hand.

The Executioner stepped forward, sword leveled and ready to finish the wounded Specter, but a burst of laser fire hit its back, doing little harm but aggravating the large alien enough that it turned and growled, the sound rumbling along the street. Tails followed its gaze and saw Carlisle standing at the end of the street, his rifle raised and aimed at the Executioner.

Another burst from the leopard's rifle struck the alien, which made it angry enough to roar and charge at the Specter, sword raised to hack his head off. Tails expected Carlisle to retreat before the Executioner's charge, but the Specter simply stood there, watching his massive adversary approach. He didn't even raise his rifle to protect himself as the Executioner drew its sword back for the killing blow.

The big sword had just begun to descend when the ground beneath the Executioner erupted, spraying gravel up into its eyes. Knuckles burst from the earth and swung his fist, catching the Executioner square in the knee. The echidna's strength finally managed to do what everything else so far had failed to accomplish; the blow knocked the big alien's leg out from under it, and the Executioner sank to the ground on one leg. It swung the handle of its blade at Knuckles, who blocked the blow, and then tried to bring its cannon up and blast him. However, Sonic sped out of the alley down the street, tearing towards Knuckles and the Executioner. His powerful spin dash caught the alien in the back of the head, slamming its face into the street as Knuckles moved aside. The echidna quickly jumped on the alien and pinned its sword arm, struggling to overcome the creature's great strength and keep it on the ground. Sonic joined Knuckles in his efforts, and the two friends fought to keep the Executioner subdued as it tried to push itself up onto its feet.

Carlisle lunged towards the three, a glowing dagger in his hand. "Hold him!" the leopard shouted, and he plunged the dagger down towards the back of the alien's skull.

The Executioner rolled over, pinning Knuckles and Sonic beneath it, and raised a hand before Carlisle could react.

The dagger stabbed straight through the alien's hand, and the Executioner yanked it out of Carlisle's grip and kicked out with a leg, catching the leopard in the stomach and hurling him back down the street, where the Specter lay holding his stomach and wheezing for air.

Knuckles punched the arm that was pinning him, forcing it away from his body and freeing himself. The echidna rolled away and leapt to his feet, turning with his fists raised, but the Executioner lunged forward, releasing Sonic, and slammed its own fist into Knuckles' face. The echidna slumped, out cold, and the creature turned and regained its feet as Sonic barreled toward it, throwing himself into a spin dash.

The blue hedgehog was about to lunge at the Executioner when a shaft of purple energy tore through the air in front of him and forced Sonic to dodge or be pierced through the chest. The maneuver made Sonic lose much of his momentum, and while he was fast enough to get by the Executioner's swinging sword and hit the alien, the blow was not strong, and the big creature merely took a step back as Sonic jumped away from its massive blade.

Glancing up towards where the shaft had come from, Sonic saw a Black Arms Ranger standing on a roof with a drawn bow, the bright shaft humming loudly enough to be heard on the street. The spikes on its shoulders were streaked with dark reddish stripes- the same stripes that were on the Ranger that had attacked Sonic and his friends the day before.

Sonic turned and stared at the creature, anger in his eyes. "Hey there, you bastard," he said loudly, "you going to run out on our fight again?"

If the Ranger understood, it did not either respond or move to fire at Sonic again. It merely watched as the Executioner approached Sonic, who turned back to his big adversary and readied himself to fight.

Sonic dashed around the Executioner, trying to get behind it and get a hit in from the back, but the alien simply turned and fired its weapon into the street behind it. The explosion, while not hitting Sonic directly, was enough to knock him off balance, and Sonic tripped and crashed into a wall. Dazed, he looked up at the sound of lasers firing and saw two more Specters charge across the street and attack the Executioner. The big alien took a moment to cut them both down with two great swings of its sword before turning and lumbering towards Sonic.

Knuckles, who at this point had stirred and dragged himself towards the fight, was about to throw himself at the Executioner when he saw Tails flying straight at the Ranger above the street, ready to knock the alien off the roof. What the young fox didn't notice, and what Knuckles clearly could, was the blade in the Ranger's hand, held close to its body so Tails couldn't see it.

_He's gonna take Tails out, _Knuckles realized, and the echidna ran towards the building, shouting as loudly as he could, "Tails! STOP! He's going to-!"

The Ranger hurled itself skyward, flipping over and over as it leapt up to Tails, surprising the fox. In Tails' brief moment of surprised hesitation, the alien lashed out with its sword, slicing a wide gash across the Freedom Fighter's body.

Tails fell to the roof of the building and did not move.

"NO!" Knuckles roared, charging forward, only to be intercepted by the Executioner, who promptly smashed the echidna into the ground after blocking a desperate strike from the Guardian. Picking Knuckles up, the big alien threw him clear through a wall, pieces of wood and brick flying everywhere, and Knuckles did not emerge back through the hole he had made.

Sonic tried to go to his friends' aid, but he was still dizzy from the close impact of the alien cannon's blast. The Executioner approached Sonic, blade raised, but before it could strike the Ranger on the roof barked out something in its incomprehensible language, and the big alien backed off.

Carlisle rose from where he had fallen, gripping his stomach and aiming his rifle with one hand at the Executioner's head. The Specter was about to fire when a purple shaft tore through the armor on his leg, felling the leopard and causing him to cry out in agony. He dropped his rifle, and although he tried to grab it again, the Specter could no longer rise to aim at the Black Arms once more.

The Ranger turned back, nocking another arrow, and it raised its drawn bow and took aim at Sonic, who realized that the creature had simply been waiting for an easy target.

_It's how they fight, _the hedgehog thought in a moment of sudden clarity, thinking back on their fight the day before. _They weaken their enemy and then strike. _It was the kind of strategy Scourge would approve of, and as Sonic stared at the purple shaft that was about to finish him, he wondered if his hated enemy had been killed in the battle yet.

_Probably not, _Sonic decided. _And here I was hoping to beat him in another fight soon._

_Damn. Sorry about this, Sal…_

The Ranger released its arrow, which flew straight at Sonic's head and tore through the wall behind him, a trail of blood following it through and splashing against the building the hedgehog rested against.

And above the smoky skies of Rock Bottom, a second sun appeared in the sky next to the one that had risen to its highest point.

* * *

The black and red ship burst asunder, the Buster bombs it carried detonating in a chain reaction that lit up the atmosphere of Mobius. The crew of the battle cruiser watched in silence as the burning fragments of the destroyed ship fell down to the surface of the planet. Outside the ship, Strykers whirled around as their Siren opponents fled, chasing down the Black Arms ships and destroying them one by one.

On the bridge of the battle cruiser, everyone was looking between the remains of the black Arms corvette and a screen that showed the coverage they were getting of the battle of Rock Bottom, when a beeping began to sound, causing the figure in the commander's chair to walk forward and stand next to the communication console where it was coming from. The Specter who sat there simply waited, knowing that his commander understood the signal and would speak in a moment.

After a brief silence, the standing figure asked, "So Demon's finally decided we should make our move, eh?" The Specter next to him nodded. "That's the transponder we gave to the Demon's Blade, alright," he answered. "It seems… we were too generous with our timeline."

Another Specter across the bridge broke in. "Aye, but we can't just head down there and save Twelve's ass while leaving a surviving corvette up in orbit. Those Black Arms scoundrels will be burning another city down in no time." He turned to the standing Specter. "What's your call, Liam? We heading down to the surface, or no?"

The standing Specter grimaced, replying, "I need to think for a moment…" He reached up to his head and rubbed his brow as it furrowed, causing his hood to fall in the process.

The droop of his ears couldn't hide the tatters that were all that remained of the lynx's left ear, and the scar that ran down his head stood out against his graying hair. The frosty beard that covered his jaw and ran halfway down to his chest twitched as the lynx frowned in thought. Finally, he looked up, and the black eyes that stared out at the wreckage of their enemy's ship burned with a fire that made the other Specters watch him warily.

"Navigation, set us on a course to enter the atmosphere," the lynx said, "and get us over the city of Rock Bottom. I want our transports ready to put us on the ground in an hour." He turned to a female Specter who stood in silence at the back of the bridge. "Samantha, I leave the other ship to you. Hunt the bastards down and finish them."

The woman nodded and turned, leaving the bridge in silence. The commander of the Specters Seventh battle group turned and walked to his chair, reaching into the alcove next to it and pulling out a pair of handguns, which he strapped into holsters on his belt.

The Specter at the communications console saw the lynx arm himself and asked, "You're going down there personally, commander? We could handle this fine ourselves…"

The commander shook his head. "I want in on this one, lad. I'd like to see to the Mobians' safety personally, as well as that of my son." He paused for a second, and then reached a hand to the comm device at his remaining ear. "Ready our 'new recruits'. There are Executioners on the surface, and we will _not _risk making any mistakes here. The Ironheart will not find two decimated battle groups when he arrives." Specters across the bridge murmured their agreement and turned back to their tasks, preparing for the coming fight.

The Specter from comms walked over to where the lynx stood, watching the fight progress on the surface below them. "We're really going to drop into the middle of that, aren't we?" he commented. He turned to his commander, saying, "You are a crazy bastard, Liam McGregor, you know that?"

"That I am," the lynx replied, a slight grin on his face. "Now, let's go save the Twelfth from their own commander, shall we?"

* * *

(_I have waited for too many chapters to bring Liam into the fold, and now I finally can get started. The next chapter is going to be a great mix of 'oh shit' moments and epic ownage. Hopefully, it'll be out soon! Favorite and follow, and review if you feel like it!) _


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